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PREFACE. 



This volume owes its existence to the desire of the 
Boston school authorities for a collection of produc- 
tions from American authors of distinction, especially 
suitable for use in the most advanced class of the 
grammar schools. Its contents are taken mostly 
from the Riverside Literature Series. 

At the request of the committee on text-books, the 
board of supervisors, after conferring with the pub- 
lishers, planned the book and approved every selec- 
tion. Their action was reported to the committee 
on text-books, and upon the recommendation of this 
committee the school board, by a unanimous vote, 
adopted the proposed book, Masterpieces of Amer- 
ican Literature, as a text -book for reading in the 
first class of the grammar schools. 

The considerations that guided in the make-up of 
the book were that the various authors should be 
represented by characteristic and noted productions ; 
that these productions, though generally above the 
present range of the thought and experience of the 
students, should yet be within their reach ; that they 
should be inspiring and uplifting in their influence 
upon life and character, and fitted to serve the great 



IV PREFACE. 

purpose of developing a sense of what real literature 
is, both in form and in spirit. 

While holding to these considerations, it was also 
kept in mind that the book must be a reading-book, 
in the school sense. It is to be used for improvement 
in the art of oral reading as well as for studies in 
literature. Therefore, a variety of styles in both 
prose and poetry is needed. This will explain why, 
in some instances, a particular selection is made from 
an author rather than some other selection. The 
more mechanical part of oral reading — the devel- 
opment and management of the voice, the rendering 
flexible the organs of speech and securing precision 
in their action — may receive due attention without 
much regard to the meaning of the exercises used in 
practice. But to gain the ability to read well orally 
— to convey exact thought and quicken feeling by the 
utterance, in appropriate tones, of what another has 
written — requires extended practice upon pieces rich 
in thought and various in style and sentiment. 

The brief biographical sketches of the thirteen au- 
thors represented here, while helpful for the infor- 
mation which they contain, will, it is hoped, inspire 
the reader to a further study of the authors and their 
works. 

As this book has been especially prepared for the 
advanced class in the grammar schools of Boston to 
meet an acknowledged want, there can be no doubt 
that it will render the same good service in classes 
of similar grade elsewhere. 



PREFACE. V 

The selections from the following named authors 
are used by permission of, and by arrangement with, 
the authorized publishers of their works : — 

Washington Irving, . . Messrs. G. P. Putnam's Sons. 

W. C. Bryant, .... Messrs. D. Appleton & Co. 

J. B. O'Reilly, .... The Cassell Publishing Company. 

Daniel Webster and 

Edward Everett, . . . Messrs. Little, Brown & Co. 



CONTENTS. 



IRVING. - ^""^^ 

Biographical Sketch 1 

Rip Van Winkle 7 

BRYANT. 

Biographical Sketch 33 

Thanatopsis ^'^ 

To a Waterfowl 39 

FRANKLIN. 

Biographical Sketch ^1 

Poor Richard's Almanac 46 

Letter to Samuel Mather 60 

Letter to the Rev. Dr. Lathrop, Boston . . . 61 

Letter to Benjamin Webb . . . . . • 64 

HOLMES. 

Biographical Sketch 65 

Grandmother's Story of Bunker Hill Battle . . 68 

The Ploughman ^^ 

The Chambered Nautilus 82 

The Iron Gate ^^ 

HAWTHORNE. 

Biographical Sketch 87 

The Great Stone Face 92 

My Visit to Niagara 117 

WHITTIER. 

Biographical Sketch 127 

Snow-Bound 130 

The Ship-Builders 1^6 

The Worship of Nature 1^9 

THOREAU. 

Biographical Sketch 161 

Wild Apples 1^^ 



vui CONTENTS. 

O'REILLY. 

Biographical Sketch 199 

The Pilgrim Fathers 203 

LOWELL. 

Biographical Sketch 213 

Books and Libraries 217 

Essay on Lincoln [with Lincoln's Gettysburg Speech] 238 
The Vision of Sir Launtal 270 

EMERSON. 

Biographical Sketch 285 

Behavior 288 

Boston Hymn 309 

WEBSTER. 

Biographical Sketch 313 

Address Delivered at the Laying of the Corner- 
stone OF Bunker Hill Monument, June 17, 1825 317 

EVERETT. 

Biographical Sketch 347 

From "The Character of Washington" . . . 351 

LONGFELLOW. 

Biographical Sketch 363 

Evangeline 366 



WASHINGTON IRVING. 



BIOGRAPHICAL SKETCH. 

Irving may be named as the first author in the United 
States whose writings made a place for themselves in gen- 
eral literature. Franklin, indeed, had preceded him with 
his autobiography, but Franklin belongs rather to the colo- 
nial period. It was under the influences of that time that 
his mind and taste were formed, and there was a marked 
difference between the Boston and Philadelphia of Frank- 
lin's youth and the New York of Irving's time. Politics, 
commerce, and the rise of industries were rapidly changing 
social relations and manners, while the country was still 
dependent on England for its higher literature. It had 
hardly begun to find materials for literature in its own past 
or in its aspects of nature, yet there was a very positive ele- 
ment in life which resented foreign interference. There 
were thus two currents crossing each other : the common life 
which was narrowly American, and the cultivated taste 
which was English, or imitative of England. Irving's first 
ventures, in company with his brothers and Paulding, were 
in the attempt to represent New York in literature upon the 
model of contemporary or recent presentations of London. 
" The town " in the minds of these young writers was that 
portion of New York society which might be construed into 
a miniature reflection of London wit and amusement. His 
associates never advanced beyond this stage, but with Wash- 
ington Irving the sketches which he wrote under the signa- 



2 WASHINGTON IRVING. 

ture of Jonathan Old Style and in the medley of Sal- 
magundi were only the first experiments of a mind capa- 
ble of larger things. After five or six years of trifling 
with his pen, he wrote and published, in 1809, A History 
of New York, hy Diedrich K7iickerbocker, which he be- 
gan in company with his brother Peter as a mere jeu d' es- 
prit, but turned into a more determined work of humor, as 
the capabilities of the subject disclosed themselves. Grave 
historians had paid little attention to the record of New 
York under the Dutch; Irving, who saw the humorous 
contrast between the traditional Dutch society of his day 
and the pushing new democracy, seized upon the early 
history and made it the occasion for a good-natured 
burlesque. He shocked the old families about him, but he 
amused everybody else, and the book, going to England, 
made his name at once known to those who had the making 
there of literary reputations. 

Irvmg himself was born of a Scottish father and English 
mother, who had come to this country only twenty years 
before. He was but little removed, therefore, from the tra- 
ditions of Great Britain, and his brothers and he carried on a 
trading business with the old country. His own tastes were 
not mercantile, and he was only silent partner in the house ; 
he wrote occasionally and was for a time the editor of a mag- 
azine, but his pleasure was chiefly in travel, good literature, 
and good society. It was while he was in England, in 1818, 
that the house in which he was a partner failed, and he was 
thrown on his own resources. Necessity gave the slight spur 
which was wanting to his inclination, and he began with 
deliberation the career of an author. He had found himself 
at home in England. His family origin and his taste for 
the best literature had made him English in his sympathies 
and tastes, and his residence and travels there, the society 
which he entered and the friends he made, confirmed him in 
English habits. Nevertheless he was sturdily American in 
his principles ; he was strongly attached to New York and 



BIOGRAPHICAL SKETCH. 3 

his American friends, and was always a looker-on in Eng- 
land. His foreign birth and education gave him significant 
advantages as an observer of English life, and he at once 
began the writing of those papers, stories, and sketches 
which appeared in the separate numbers of The Sketch 
Book, in Bracebridge Hall, and in Tales of a Traveller, 
They were chiefly drawn from material accumulated abroad, 
but an occasional American subject was taken. Irving in- 
stinctively felt that by the circumstances of the tnne and the 
bent of his genius he could pursue his calling more safely 
abroad than at home. He remained in Europe seventeen 
years, sending home his books for publication, and securing 
also the profitable results of publication in London. During 
that time, besides the books above named, he wrote the 
History of the Life and Voyages of Christopher Columbus ; 
the Voyages and Discoveries of the Companions of Colum- 
bus ; A Chronicle of the Conquest of Grayiada ; and Th& 
Alhambra. The Spanish material was obtained while 
residing in Spain, whither he went at the suggestion of the 
American minister to make translations of documents relat- 
ing to the voyages of Columbus which had recently been 
collected. Irving's training and tastes led him rather into 
the construction of popular narrative than into the work of a 
scientific historian, and, with his strong American affections, 
he was quick to see the interest and value which lay in the 
history of Spain as connected with America. He was emi- 
nently a raconteur, very skilful and graceful in the shaping 
of old material ; his humor played freely over the surface of 
his writing, and, with little power to create characters or 
plots, he had an unfailing perception of the literary capabil- 
ities of scenes and persons which came under his observation. 
He came back to America in 1832 with an established 
reputation, and was welcomed enthusiastically by his friends 
and countrymen. He travelled into the new parts of Amer- 
ica, and spent ten years at home, industriously working at 
the material which had accumulated in his hands when 



4 WASHINGTON IRVING. 

abroad, and had been increased during his travels in the 
West. In this period he published Legends of the Con- 
quest of Spain ; The Grmjon Miscellany^ including his 
Tour on the Prairies, Ahhotsford and Newstead Abbey ; 
Astoria ; a number of papers in the Knickerbocker Maga- 
zine, afterwards published under the title of Wolferfs 
Boost ; and edited the Adventures of Captain Bonneville, 
U. S. A., in the Rocky Mountains a7id the Far West, 

In 1842 he went back to Spain as American minister, 
holding the office for four years, when he returned to AmerT 
ica, established himself at his home, Sunnyside on the banks 
of the Hudson, and remained there until his death in 1859. 
The fruits of this final period were Mahomet and his Suc- 
cessors, which, with a volume of posthumous publication, 
Spanish Papers and other Miscellanies, completed the 
series of Spanish and Moorish subjects which form a distinct 
part of his writings ; Oliver Goldsmith, a Biography ; and 
finally a Life of Washington, which occupied the closing 
years of his life, — years which were not free from physical 
suffering. In this book Irving embodied his strong admira- 
tion for the subject, whose name he bore and whose blessing 
he had received as a child ; he employed, too, a pen which had 
been trained by its labors on the Spanish material, and, like 
that series, the work is marked by good taste, artistic sense 
of proportion, faithfulness, and candor, rather than by the 
severer work of the historian. It is a popular and a fair 
life of Washington and account of the war for independence. 

Irving's personal and literary history is recorded in The 
Life and Letters of Washington Irving, by his nephew, 
Pierre M. Irving. His death was the occasion of many 
affectionate and graceful eulogies and addresses, a number 
of which were gathered into Irving iana : a Memorial of 
Washingto7i Irving. 

Rip Van Winkle is from The Sketch Book, 



INTRODUCTION TO RIP VAN WINKLE. 

The story of Rip Van Winkle purported to have been 
written by Diedricli Knickerbocker, who was a humorous in- 
vention of Irving's, and whose name was familiar to the pub- 
lic as the author of A History of New York. The History 
was published in 1809, but it was ten years more before 
the first number of The Sketch Book of Geoffrey Crayon, 
Gent., was published. This number, which contained Rip 
Van Winkle, was, like succeeding numbers, written by Ir- 
ving in England and sent home to America for publication. 
He laid the scene of the story in the Kaatskills, but he drew 
upon his imagination and the reports of others for the scen- 
ery, not visiting the spot until 1833. The story is not ab- 
solutely new ; the fairy tale of The Sleeping Beauty in the 
Wood has the same theme ; so has the story of Epimenides 
of Crete, who lived in the sixth or seventh century before 
Christ. He was said to have fallen asleep in a cave when 
a boy, and to have awaked at the end of fifty-seven years, 
his soul, meanwhile, having been growing in stature. There 
is the legend also of the Seven Sleepers of Ephesus, Chris- 
tian martyrs who were walled into a cave to which they had 
fled for refuge, and there were miraculously preserved for 
two centuries. Among the stories in which the Harz Moun- 
tains of Germany are so prolific is one of Peter Klaus, a 
goatherd who was accosted one day by a young man who 
silently beckoned him to follow, and led him to a secluded 
spot, where he found twelve knights playing, voiceless, at 
skittles. He saw a can of wine which was very fragrant, 
and, drinking of it, was thrown into a deep sleep, from 
which he did not wake for twenty years. The story gives 



6 WASHINGTON IRVING. 

incidents of his awaking and of the changes which he found 
in the village to which he returned. This story, which was 
published with others in 1800, may very likely have been 
the immediate suggestion to Irving, who has taken nearly 
the same framework. The humorous additions which he 
has made, and the grace with which he has invested the 
tale, have caused his story to supplant earlier ones in the 
popular mind, so that Rip Van Winkle has passed into 
familiar speech, and allusions to him are clearly understood 
by thousands who have never read Irving' s story. The 
recent dramatizing of the story, though following the out- 
line only, has done much to fix the conception of the char- 
acter. The story appeals very directly to a common senti- 
ment of curiosity as to the future, which is not far removed 
from what some have regarded as an instinct of the liuman 
mind pointing to personal immortality. The name Van 
Winkle was happily chosen by Irving, but not invented by 
him. The printer of the Sketch Book, for one, bore the 
name. The name Knickerbocker, also, is among the Dutch 
names, but Irving's use of it has made it representative. In 
The AtUhor's Apology, which he prefixed to a new edition 
of the History of Neiv York, he says : "I find its very 
name become a ' household word,' and used to give the 
home stamp to everything recommended for popular accep- 
tation, such as Knickerbocker societies ; Knickerbocker in- 
surance companies ; Knickerbocker steamboats ; Knicker- 
bocker omnibuses, Knickerbocker bread, and Knickerbocker 
ice ; and . . . New Yorkers of Dutch descent priding them- 
selves upon being ' genuine Knickerbockers.' " 



RIP VAN WINKLE. 

A POSTHUMOUS WRITING OF DIEDRICH KNICKERBOCKER. 

By Woden, God of Saxons, 

From whence comes Wensday, that is Wodensday. 

Truth is a thing that ever I will keep 

Unto thylke day in which I creep into 

My sepulchre. Caetweight.i 

The following tale was found among the papers of the late 
Diedrich Knickerbocker, an old gentleman of New York, who 
was very curious in the Dutch history of the province, and the 
manners of the descendants from its primitive settlers. His his- 
torical researches, however, did not lie so much among books 
as among men ; for the former are lamentably scanty ou his 
favorite topics ; whereas he found the old burghers, and still 
more their wives, rich in that legendary lore so invaluable to 
true history. Whenever, therefore, he happened upon a genuine 
Dutch family, snugly shut up in its low-roofed farmhouse under 
a spreading sycamore, he looked upon it as a little clasped vol- 
ume of black-letter, and studied it with the zeal of a book-worm. 

The result of all these researches was a history of the province 
during the reign of the Dutch governors, which he published 
some years since. There have been various opinions as to the 
literary character of his work, and, to tell the truth, it is not a 
whit better than it should be. Its chief mej'it is its scrupulous 
accuracy, which indeed was a little questioned on its first appear- 
ance, but has since been completely established ; and it is now 
admitted into all historical collections, as a book of unquestion- 
able authority. 

The old gentleman died shortly after the publication of his 
work, and now that he is dead and gone, it cannot do much harm 

^ William Cartwright, 1611-1643, was a friend and disciple of 
Ben Jonson. 



8 WASHINGTON IRVING. 

to his memory ^ to say that his time might have been much bet- 
ter employed in weightier labors. He, however, was apt to ride 
his hobby his own way ; and though it did now and then kick up 
the dust a little in the eyes of his neighbors, and grieve the spirit 
of some friends, for whom he felt the truest deference and affec- 
tion ; yet his errors and follies are remembered " more in sorrow 
than in anger," and it begins to be suspected that he never in- 
tended to injure or offend. But however his memory may be 
appreciated by critics, it is still held dear by many folk, whose 
good opinion is worth having ; particularly by certain biscuit- 
bakers, who have gone so far as to imprint his likeness on their 
new-year cakes ; ^ and have thus given him a chance for immor- 
tality, almost equal to the being stamped on a Waterloo Medal, 
or a Queen Anne's Farthing.^ 

1 The History of Neiu York had given offence to many old 
New Yorkers because of its saucy treatment of names which 
were held in veneration as those of founders of families, and its 
general burlesque of Dutch character. Among the critics was a 
warm friend of Irving, Gulian C. Verplanck, who in a discourse 
before the New York Historical Society plainly said : " It is 
painful to see a mind, as admirable for its exquisite perception 
of the beautiful as it is for its quick sense of the ridiculous, wast- 
ing the richness of its fancy on an ungrateful theme, and its 
exuberant humor in a coarse caricature." Irving took the cen- 
sure good-naturedly, and as he read Verplanck's words just as 
he was finishing the story of Rip Van Winkle, he gave them this 
playful notice in the introduction. 

2 An oblong seed-cake, still made in New York at New Year's 
time, and of Dutch origin. 

3 There was a popular story that only three farthings were 
struck in Queen Anne's reign ; that two were in public keeping, 
and that the third was no one knew where, but that its lucky 
finder would be able to hold it at an enormous price. As a mat- 
ter of fact there were eight coinings of farthings in the reign of 
Queen Anne, and numismatists do not set a high value on the 
piece. 



RIP VAN WINKLE. 9 

Whoever has made a voyage up the Hudson must 
remember the Kaatskill Mountains. They are a dis- 
membered branch of the great Appalachian family, 
and are seen away to the west of the river, swelling 
up to a noble height, and lording it over the surround- 
ing country. Every change of season, every change 
of weather, indeed, every hour of the day, produces 
some change in the magical hues and shapes of these 
mountains, and they are regarded by all the good 
wives, far and near, as perfect barometers. When the 
weather is fair and settled, they are clothed in blue 
and purple, and print their bold outlines on the clear 
evening sky ; but sometimes when the rest of the land- 
scape is cloudless they will gather a hood of gray 
vapors about their summits, which, in the last rays of 
the setting sun, will glow and light up like a crown of 
glory. 

At the foot of these fairy ^ mountains, the voyager 
may have descried the light smoke curling up from a 
village, whose shingle-roofs gleam among the trees, 
just where the blue tints of the upland melt away into 
the fresh green of the nearer landscape. It is a little 
village of great antiquity, having been founded by 
some of the Dutch colonists in the early time of the 
province, just about the beginning of the government 
of the good Peter Stuyvesant,^ (ii^^y ^le rest in peace !) 
and there were some of the houses of the original set- 
tlers standing within a few years, built of small yellow 

^ A light touch to help the reader into a proper spirit for re- 
ceiving the tale. 

2 Stuyvesant was governor of New Netherlands from 1647 to 
1664. He plays an important part in Knickerbocker's History of 
New York, as he did in actual life. Until quite recently a pear 
tree was shown on the Bowery, said to have been planted by 
him. 



10 WASHINGTON IRVING. 

bricks brought from Holland, having latticed windows 
and gable fronts, surmounted with weathercocks. 

In that same village, and in one of these very houses 
(which, to tell the precise truth, was sadly time-worn 
and weather-beaten), there lived many years since, 
while the country was yet a province of Great Britain, 
a simple, good-natured fellow, of the name of Rip Van 
Winkle. He was a descendant of the Van Winkles 
who figured so gallantly in the chivalrous days of 
Peter Stuyvesant, and accompanied him to the siege 
of Fort Christina.^ He inherited, however, but little 
of the martial character of his ancestors. I have 
observed that he was a simple, good-natured man ; he 
was, moreover, a kind neighbor, and an obedient hen- 
pecked husband. Indeed, to the latter circumstance 
might be owing that meekness of spirit which gained 
him such universal popularity; for those men are 
most apt to be obsequious and conciliating abroad, 
who are under the discipline of shrews at home. 
Their tempers, doubtless, are rendered pliant and mal- 
leable in the fiery furnace of domestic tribulation ; and 
a curtain lecture is worth all the sermons in the world 
for teaching the virtues of patience and long-suffering. 
A termagant wife may, therefore, in some respects be 
considered a tolerable blessing, and if so. Rip Van 
Winkle was thrice blessed. 

Certain it is, that he was a great favorite among all 
the good wives of the village, who, as usual with the 
amiable sex, took his part in all family squabbles ; 
and never failed, whenever they talked those matters 

1 The Van Winkles appear in the illustrious catalogue of 
heroes who accompanied Stuyvesant to Fort Christina, and were 

" Brimful of wrath and cabbage." 

See History of New York, book VI. chap. viii. 



RIP VAN WINKLE. 11 

over in their evening gossipings, to lay all the blame 
on Dame Van Winkle. The children of the village, 
too, would shout with joy whenever he approached. 
He assisted at their sports, made their playthings, 
taught them to fly kites and shoot marbles, and told 
them long stories of ghosts, witches, and Indians. 
Whenever he went dodging about the village, he was 
surrounded by a troop of them, hanging on his skirts, 
clambering on his back, and playing a thousand tricks 
on him with impunity ; and not a dog would bark at 
him throughout the neighborhood. 

The great error in Rip's composition was an insu- 
perable aversion to all kinds of profitable labor. It 
could not be from the want of assiduity or persever- 
ance ; for he would sit on a wet rock, with a rod as 
long and heavy as a Tartar's lance, and fish all day 
without a murmur, even though he should not be en- 
couraged by a single nibble. He would carry a fowl- 
ing-piece on his shoulder for hours together, trudging 
through woods and swamps, and up hill and down 
dale, to shoot a few squirrels or wild pigeons. He 
would never refuse to assist a neighbor, even in the 
roughest toil, and was a foremost man at all country 
frolics for husking Indian corn, or building stone- 
fences ; the women of the village, too, used to employ 
him to run their errands, and to do such little odd 
jobs as their less obliging husbands would not do for 
them. In a word, Eip was ready to attend to any- 
body's business but his own ; but as to doing family 
duty, and keeping his farm in order, he found it im- 
possible. 

In fact, he declared it was of no use to work on his 
farm ; it was the most pestilent little piece of ground 
in the whole country ; everything about it went wrong. 



12 WASHINGTON IRVING. 

and would go wrong, in spite of him. His fences 
were continually falling to pieces ; his cow would either 
go astray or get among the cabbages ; weeds were sure 
to grow quicker in his fields than anywhere else ; the 
rain always made a point of setting in just as he had 
some out-door work to do ; so that though his patri- 
monial estate had dwindled away under his manage- 
ment, acre by acre, until there was little more left 
than a mere patch of Indian corn and potatoes, yet it 
was the worst -conditioned farm in the neighborhood. 

His children, too, were as ragged and wild as if 
they belonged to nobody. His son Rip, an urchin be- 
gotten in his own likeness, promised to inherit the 
habits, with the old clothes of his father. He was 
generally seen trooping like a colt at his mother's 
heels, equi]3ped in a pair of his father's cast-off galli- 
gaskins, which he had much ado to hold up with one 
hand, as a fine lady does her train in bad weather. 

Rip Van Winkle, however, was one of those happy 
mortals, of foolish, well-oiled dispositions, who take the 
world easy, eat white bread or brown, whichever can 
be got with least thought or trouble, and would rather 
starve on a penny than work for a pound. If left to 
himself, he would have whistled life away in perfect 
contentment ; but his wife kept continually dinning in 
his ears about his idleness, his carelessness, and the 
ruin he was bringing on his family. Morning, noon, 
and night her tongue was incessantly going, and every- 
thing he said or did was sure to produce a torrent of 
household eloquence. Rip had but one way of reply- 
ing to all lectures of the kind, and that, by frequent 
use, had grown into a habit. He shrugged his shoul- 
ders, shook his head, cast up his eyes, but said no- 
thing. This, however, always provoked a fresh volley 



RIP VAN WINKLE. 13 

from his wife ; so that he was fain to draw off his 
forces, and take to the outside of the house — the only 
side which, in truth, belongs to a henpecked husband. 

Kip's sole domestic adherent was his dog Wolf, who 
was as much henpecked as his master ; for Dame Van 
Winkle regarded them as companions in idleness, and 
even looked upon Wolf with an evil eye, as the cause 
of his master's going so often astray. True it is, in 
all points of spirit befitting an honorable dog, he was 
as courageous an animal as ever scoured the woods — 
but what courage can withstand the ever-during and 
all-besetting terrors of a woman's tongue ? The mo- 
ment Wolf entered the house his crest fell, his tail 
drooped to the ground, or curled between his legs, he 
sneaked about with a gallows air, casting many a side- 
long glance at Dame Van Winkle, and at the least 
flourish of a broomstick or ladle he would fly to the 
door with yelping precipitation. 

Times grew worse and worse with Rip Van Winkle 
as years of matrimony rolled on ; a tart temper never 
mellows with age, and a sharp tongue is the only edged 
tool that grows keener with constant use. For a long 
while he used to console himself, when driven from 
home, by frequenting a kind of perpetual club of the 
sages, philosophers, and other idle personages of the 
village ; which held its sessions on a bench before a 
small inn, designated by a rubicund portrait of His 
Majesty George the Third. Here they used to sit in 
the shade through a long lazy summer's day, talking 
listlessly over village gossip, or telling endless sleepy 
stories about nothing. But it would have been w^orth 
any statesman's money to have heard the profound dis- 
cussions that sometimes took place, when by chance an 
old newspaper fell into their hands from some passing 



14 WASHINGTON IRVING. 

traveller. How solemnly they would listen to the con- 
tents, as drawled out by Derrick Van Bummel, the 
school-master, a dapper learned little man, who was 
not to be daunted by the most gigantic word in the 
dictionary ; and how sagely they would deliberate upon 
public events some months after they had taken place. 

The opinions of this junto were completely con- 
trolled by Nicholas Vedder, a patriarch of the village, 
and landlord of the inn, at the door of which he 
took his seat from morning till night, just moving suf- 
ficiently to avoid the sun and keep in the shade of a 
large tree ; so that the neighbors could tell the hour by 
his movements as accurately as by a sun-dial. It is 
true he was rarely heard to speak, but smoked his pipe 
incessantly. His adherents, however (for every great 
man has his adherents), perfectly understood him, and 
knew how to gather his opinions. When anything 
that was read or related displeased him, he was ob- 
served to smoke his pipe vehemently, and to send forth 
short, frequent and angry puffs ; but when pleased, he 
would inhale the smoke slowly and tranquilly, and 
emit it in light and placid clouds ; and sometimes, tak- 
ing the pipe from his mouth, and letting the fragrant 
vapor curl about his nose, would gravely nod his head 
in token of perfect approbation. 

From even this stronghold the unlucky Eip was at 
length routed by his termagant wife, who would sud- 
denly break in upon the tranquillity of the assemblage 
and call the members all to naught ; nor was that 
august personage, Nicholas Vedder himself, sacred 
from the daring tongue of this terrible virago, who 
charged him outright with encouraging her husband in 
habits of idleness. 

Poor Rip was at last reduced almost to despair; 



RIP VAN WINKLE. 16 

and his only alternative, to escape from the labor of 
the farm and clamor of his wife, was to take gun in 
hand and stroll away into the woods. Here he would 
sometimes seat himself at the foot of a tree, and share 
the contents of his wallet with Wolf, with whom he 
sympathized as a fellow-sufferer in persecution. " Poor 
Wolf," he would say, " thy mistress leads the dog's 
life of it ; but never mind, my lad, whilst I live thou 
shalt never want a friend to stand by thee ! " Wolf 
would wag his tail, look wistfully in his master's face, 
and if dogs can feel pity I verily believe he recipro- 
cated the sentiment with all his heart. 

In a long ramble of the kind on a fine autumnal 
day. Rip had unconsciously scrambled to one of the 
highest parts of the Kaatskill Mountains. He was 
after his favorite sport of squirrel shooting, and the 
still solitudes had echoed and reechoed with the re- 
ports of his gun. Panting and fatigued, he threw 
himself, late in the afternoon, on a green knoll, cov- 
ered with mountain herbage, that crowned the brow 
of a precipice. From an opening between the trees 
he could overlook all the lower country for many a 
mile of rich woodland. He saw at a distance the 
lordly Hudson, far, far below him, moving on its silent 
but majestic course, with the reflection of a purple 
cloud, or the sail of a lagging bark, here and there 
sleeping on its glassy bosom, and at last losing itself in 
the blue highlands. 

On the other side he looked down into a deep moun- 
tain glen, wild, lonely, and shagged, the bottom filled 
with fragments from the impending cliffs, and scarcely 
lighted by the reflected rays of the setting sun. For 
some time Eip lay musing on this scene ; evening was 
gradually advanced; the mountains began to throw 



16 WASHINGTON IRVING. 

their long blue shadows over the valleys ; he saw that 
it would be dark long before he could reach the village, 
and he heaved a heavy sigh when he thought of en- 
countering the terrors of Dame Van Winkle. 

As he was about to descend, he heard a voice from 
a distance, hallooing, " Kip Van Winkle ! Kip Van 
Winkle ! " He looked round, but could see nothing 
but a crow winging its solitary flight across the moun- 
tain. He thought his fancy must have deceived him, 
and turned again to descend, when he heard the same 
cry ring through the still evening air: "Kip Van 
Winkle ! Kip Van Winkle ! " — at the same time Wolf 
bristled \v^ his back, and giving a low growl, skulked 
to his master's side, lookingly fearfully down into the 
glen. Kip now felt a vague apprehension stealing- 
over him ; he looked anxiously in the same direction, 
and perceived a strange figure slowly toiling up the 
rocks, and bending under the weight of something he 
carried on his back. He was surprised to see any 
human being in this lonely and unfrequented place ; 
but supposing it to be some one of the neighborhood 
in need of his assistance, he hastened down to yield it. 

On nearer approach he was still more surprised at 
the singularity of the stranger's appearance. He was 
a short, square-built old fellow, with thick bushy hair, 
and a grizzled beard. His dress was of the antique 
Dutch fashion : a cloth jerkin strapped round the 
waist, several pair of breeches, the outer one of ample 
volume, decorated with rows of buttons down the 
sides, and bunches at the knees. He bore on his 
shoulder a stout keg, that seemed full of liquor, and 
made signs for Kip to approach and assist him with 
the load. Though rather shy and distrustful of this 
new acquaintance, Kip complied with his usual alac- 



RIP VAN WINKLE. 17 

rity ; and mutually relieving one another, they clam- 
bered up a narrow gully, apparently the dry bed of a 
mountain torrent. As they ascended. Rip every now 
and then heard long rolling peals like distant thunder, 
that seemed to issue out of a deep ravine, or rather 
cleft, between lofty rocks, toward which their rugged 
path conducted. He paused for a moment, but sup- 
posing it to be the muttering of one of those transient 
thunder-showers whitih often take place in mountain 
heights, he proceeded. Passing through the ravine, 
they came to a hollow, like a small amphitheatre, sur- 
rounded by perpendicular precipices, over the brinks 
of which impending trees shot their branches, so that 
you only caught glimpses of the azure sky and the 
bright evening cloud. During the whole time Rip and 
his companion had labored on in silence ; for though 
the former marvelled greatly what could be the object 
of carrying a keg of liquor up this wild mountain, yet 
there was something strange and incomprehensible 
about the unknown, that inspired awe and checked 
familiarity. 

On entering the amphitheatre, new objects of wonder 
presented themselves. On a level spot in the centre 
was a company of odd-looking personages playing at 
ninepins. They were dressed in a quaint outlandish 
fashion ; some wore short doublets, others jerkins, with 
long knives in their belts, and most of them had enor- 
mous breeches of similar style with that of the guide's. 
Their visages, too, were peculiar; one had a large 
beard, broad face, and small piggish eyes ; the face of 
another seemed to consist entirely of nose, and was 
surmounted by a white sugar-loaf hat, set off with a 
little red cock's tail. They all had beards, of various 
shapes and colors. There was one "who seemed to be 



18 WASHINGTON IRVING. 

the commander. He was a stout old gentleman, with 
a weather-beaten countenance ; he wore a laced doub- 
let, broad belt and hanger, high-crowned hat and 
feather, red stockings, and high-heeled shoes, with 
roses in them. The whole group reminded Kip of the 
figures in an old Flemish painting in the parlor of 
Dominie Van Shaick, the village parson, which had 
been brought over from Holland at the time of the 
settlement. 

What seemed particularly odd to Rip was, that 
though these folks were evidently amusing themselves, 
yet they maintained the gravest faces, the most mys- 
terious silence, and were, withal, the most melancholy 
party of pleasure he had ever witnessed. Nothing 
interrupted the stillness of the scene but the noise of 
the balls, which, whenever they were rolled, echoed 
along the mountains like rumbling peals of thunder. 

As Rip and his companion approached them, they 
suddenly desisted from their play, and stared at him 
with such fixed, statue-like gaze, and such strange, un- 
couth, lack-lustre countenances, that his heart turned 
within him, and his knees smote together. His com- 
panion now emptied the contents of the keg into large 
flagons, and made signs to him to wait upon the com- 
pany. He obeyed with fear and trembling; they 
quaffed the liquor in profound silence, and then re- 
turned to their game. 

By degrees Rip's awe and apprehension subsided. 
He even ventured, when no eye was fixed upon him, to 
taste the beverage, which he found had mucli of the 
flavor of excellent Hollands. He was naturally a 
thirsty soul, and was soon tempted to repeat the 
draught. One taste provoked another ; and he reiter- 
ated his visits to the flagon so often that at length his 



RIP VAN WINKLE. 19 

senses were overpowered, liis eyes swam in his head, 
his head gradually declined, and he fell into a deep 
sleep. 

On waking, he found himself on the green knoll 
whence he had first seen the old man of the glen. 
He rubbed his eyes — it was a bright, sunny morning. 
The birds were hopping and twittering among the 
bushes, and the eagle was wheeling aloft, and breast- 
ing the pure mountain breeze. " Surely," thought 
Rip, " I have not slept here all night." He recalled 
the occurrences before he fell asleep. The strange 
man with a keg of liquor — the mountain ravine — 
the wild retreat among the rocks — the woe-begone 
party at nine-pins — the flagon — " Oh ! that flagon ! 
that wicked flagon ! " thought Rip — " what excuse 
shall I make to Dame Van Winkle ? " 

He looked round for his gun, but in place of the 
clean, well-oiled fowling-piece, he found an old fire- 
lock lying by him, the barrel incrusted with rust, the 
lock falling off, and the stock worm-eaten. He now 
suspected that the grave roisters of the mountain had 
put a trick upon him, and, having dosed him with li- 
quor, had robbed him of his gun. Wolf, too, had dis- 
appeared, but he might have strayed away after a 
squirrel or partridge. He whistled after him, and 
shouted his name, but all in vain ; the echoes repeated 
his whistle and shout, but no dog was to be seen. 

He determined to revisit the scene of the last even- 
ing's gambol, and if he met with any of the party, to 
demand his dog and gun. As he rose to walk, he 
found himself stiff in the joints, and wanting in his 
usual activity. " These mountain beds do not agree 
with me," thought Rip, " and if this frolic should lay 
me up with a fit of the rheumatism, I shall have a 



20 WASHINGTON IRVING. 

blessed time with Dame Van Winkle." With some 
difficulty he got down into the glen ; he found the 
gully up which he and his companion had ascended 
the preceding evening ; but to his astonishment a 
mountain stream was now foaming down it, leaping 
from rock to rock, and filling the glen with babbling 
murmurs. He, however, made shift to scramble up its 
sides, working his toilsome way through thickets of 
birch, sassafras, and witch-hazel, and sometimes 
tripped up or entangled by the wild grapevines that 
twisted their coils or tendrils from tree to tree, and 
spread a kind of network in his path. 

At length he reached to where the ravine had 
opened through the cliffs to the amphitheatre ; but no 
traces of such opening remained. The rocks presented 
a high, impenetrable wall, over which the torrent came 
tumbling in a sheet of feathery foam, and fell into a 
broad, deep basin, black from the shadows of the sur- 
rounding forest. Here, then, poor Eip was brought 
to a stand. He again called and whistled after his 
dog ; he was only answered by the cawing of a flock 
of idle crows, sporting high in air about a dry tree 
that overhung a sunny precipice ; and who, secure in 
their elevation, seemed to look down and scoff at the 
poor man's perplexities. What was to be done ? the 
morning was passing away, and Eip felt famished for 
want of his breakfast. He grieved to give up his dog 
and gun ; he dreaded to meet his wife ; but it would 
not do to starve among the mountains. He shook his 
head, shouldered the rusty firelock, and, with a heart 
full of trouble and anxiety, turned his stej)s home- 
ward. 

As he approached the village he met a number of 
people, but none whom he knew, which somewhat sur- 



RIP VAN WINKLE. 21 

prised him, for lie had thought himself acquainted 
with every one in the country round. Their dress, 
too, was of a different fashion from that to which he 
was accustomed. They all stared at him with equal 
marks of surprise, and whenever they cast their eyes 
upon him, invariably stroked their chins. The con- 
stant recurrence of this gesture induced Rip, involun- 
tarily, to do the same, when, to his astonishment, he 
found his beard had grown a foot long ! 

He had now entered the skirts of the village. A 
troop of strange children ran at his heels, hooting 
after him, and pointing at his gray beard. The dogs, 
too, not one of which he recognized for an old ac- 
quaintance, barked at him as he passed. The very 
village was altered ; it was larger and more populous. 
There were rows of houses which he had never seen 
before, and those which had been his familiar haunts 
had disappeared. Strange names were over the doors 
— strange faces at the windows, — everything was 
strange. His mind now misgave him; he began to 
doubt whether both he and the world around him 
were not bewitched. Surely this was his native vil- 
lage, which he had left but the day before. There 
stood the Kaatskill Mountains — there ran the silver 
Hudson at a distance — there was every hill and dale 
precisely as it had always been — Rip was sorely per- 
plexed — " That flagon last night," thought he, " has 
addled my poor head sadly ! " 

It was with some difficulty that he found the way 
to his own house, which he approached with silent 
awe, expecting every moment to hear the shrill voice 
of Dame Van Winkle. He found the house gone to 
decay — the roof fallen in, the windows shattered, 
and the doors off the hinges. A half-starved dog that 



22 WASHINGTON IRVING. 

looked like Wolf was skulking about it. Kip called 
him by name, but the cur snarled, showed his teeth, 
and passed on. This was an unkind cut indeed — 
"My very dog," sighed poor Rip, "has forgotten 
me!" 

He entered the house, which, to tell the truth. Dame 
Van Winkle had always kept in neat order. It was 
empty, forlorn, and apparently abandoned. This deso- 
lateness overcame all his connubial fears — he called 
loudly for his wife and children — the lonely cham- 
bers rang for a moment with his voice, and then again 
all was silence. 

He now hurried forth, and hastened to his old re- 
sort, the village inn — but it, too, was gone. A large, 
rickety wooden building stood in its place, with great 
gaping windows, some of them broken and mended 
with old hats and petticoats, and over the door was 
painted, " The Union Hotel, by Jonathan Doolittle." 
Instead of the great tree that used to shelter the quiet 
little Dutch inn of yore, there now was reared a tall 
naked pole, with something on the top that looked like 
a red night-cap, and from it was fluttering a flag, on 
which was a singular assemblage of stars and stripes 
— all this was strange and incomprehensible. He 
recognized on the sign, however, the ruby face of 
King George, under which he had smoked so many a 
peaceful pipe ; but even this was singularly metamor- 
phosed. The red coat was changed for one of blue 
and buff, a sword was held in the hand instead of a 
sceptre, the head was decorated with a cocked hat, 
and underneath was painted in large characters. Gen- 
eral Washington. 

There was, as usual, a crowd of folk about the door, 
but none that Rip recollected. The very character of 



RIP VAN WINKLE. 23 

the people seemed changed. There was a busy, bus- 
tling, disputatious tone about it, instead of the accus- 
tomed phlegm and drowsy tranquillity. He looked in 
vain for the sage Nicholas Vedder, with his broad 
face, double chin, and fair long pipe, uttering clouds 
of tobacco-smoke instead of idle speeches ; or Van 
Bunmiel, the school-master, doling forth the contents 
of an ancient newspaper. In place of these, a lean, 
bilious-looking fellow, with his pockets full of hand- 
bills, was haranguing vehemently about rights of citi- 
zens — elections — members of congress — liberty — 
Bunker's Hill — heroes of seventy-six — and other 
words, which were a perfect Babylonish jargon to the 
bewildered Van Winkle. 

The appearance of Rip, with his long grizzled beard, 
his rusty fowling-piece, his uncouth dress, and an army 
of women and children at his heels, soon attracted 
the attention of the tavern-politicians. They crowded 
round him, eying him from head to foot with great 
curiosity. The orator bustled up to him, and, draw- 
ing him partly aside, inquired " on which side he 
voted ? " Rip started in vacant stupidity. Another 
short but busy little fellow pulled him by the arm, 
and, rising on tiptoe, inquired in his ear, " Whether 
he was Federal or Democrat ? " Rip was equally at 
a loss to comprehend the question ; when a knowing, 
self-important old gentleman, in a sharp cocked hat, 
made his way through the crowd, putting them to the 
right and left with his elbows as he passed, and plant- 
ing himself before Van Winkle, with one arm akimbo, 
the other resting on his cane, his keen eyes and sharp 
hat penetrating, as it were, into his very soul, de- 
manded in an austere tone, " what brought him to the 
election with a gun on his shoulder, and a mob at his 



24 WASHINGTON IRVING. 

heels, and whether he meant to breed a riot in the 
village ? " — " Alas ! gentlemen," cried Kip, somewhat 
dismayed, " I am a poor quiet man, a native of the 
place, and a loyal subject of the king, God bless 
him ! " 

Here a general shout burst from the bystanders — 
" A tory ! a tory ! a spy ! a refugee ! hustle him ! 
away with him ! " It was with great difficulty that 
the self-important man in the cocked hat restored 
order; and, having assumed a tenfold austerity of 
brow, demanded again of the unknown culprit what 
he came there for, and whom he was seeking ? The 
poor man humbly assured him that he meant no harm, 
but merely came there in search of some of his neigh- 
bors, who used to keep about the tavern. 

" Well — who are they ? — name them." 

Eip bethought himself a moment, and inquired, 
" Where 's Nicholas Vedder ? " 

There was a silence for a little while, when an old 
man replied, in a thin, piping voice : " Nicholas Ved- 
der ! why, he is dead and gone these eighteen years ! 
There was a wooden tombstone in the churchyard that 
used to tell all about him, but that 's rotten and gone 
too." 

" Where 's Brom Dutcher ? " 

" Oh, he went off to the army in the beginning of 
the war ; some say he was killed at the storming of 
Stony Point ^ — others say he was drowned in a squall 
at the foot of Antony's Nose.^ I don't know — he 
never came back again." 

1 On the Hudson. The place is famous for the daring assault 
made by Mad Anthony Wayne, July 15, 1779. 

2 A few miles above Stony Point is the promontory of An- 
tony's Nose. If we are to believe Diedrich Knickerbocker, it 



RIP VAN WINKLE. 25 

" "Where 's Van Bummel, the school-master ? " 

" He went off to the wars too, was a great militia 
general, and is now in Congress." 

Rip's heart died away at hearing of these sad 
changes in his home and friends, and finding himself 
thus alone in the world. Every answer puzzled him 
too, by treating of such enormous lapses of time, and 
of matters which he could not understand : war — 
Congress — Stony Point; he had no courage to ask 
after any more friends, but cried out in despair, 
" Does nobody here know Rip Van Winkle ? " 

" Oh, Rip Van Winkle ! " exclaimed two or three, 
" Oh, to be sure ! that 's Rip Van Winkle yonder, lean- 
ing against the tree." 

Rip looked, and beheld a precise counterpart of 
himself, as he went up the mountain : apparently as 
lazy, and certainly as ragged. The poor fellow was 
now completely confounded. He doubted his own 
identity, and whether he was himself or another man. 

was named after Antony Van Corlear, Stuyvesant's trumpeter. 
" It must be known, then, that the nose of Antony the trum- 
peter was of a very histy size, strutting boldly from his counte- 
nance like a mountain of Golconda. . . . Now thus it happened, 
that bright and early in the morning the good Antony, having 
washed his burly visage, was leaning over the quarter railing of 
the galley, contemplating it in the glassy wave below. Just at 
this moment the illustrious sun, breaking in all his splendor 
from behind a high bluff, of the highlands, did dart one of his 
most potent beams full upon the refulgent nose of the sounder 
of brass — the reflection of which shot straightway down, hissing 
hot, into the water and killed a mighty sturgeon that was sport- 
ing beside the vessel ! . . . When this astonishing miracle came 
to be made known to Peter Stuyvesant he . . . marvelled ex- 
ceedingly ; and as a monument thereof, he gave the name of 
Antonyms Nose to a stout promontory in the neighborhood, and 
it has continued to be called Antony's Nose ever since that 
time." History of New York, book VI. chap. iv. 



26 WASHINGTON IRVING. 

In the midst of his bewilderment, the man in the 
cocked hat demanded who he was, and what was his 
name? 

" God knows," exclaimed he, at his wit's end ; " I 'm 
not myself — I 'm somebody else — that 's me yonder 
— no — that 's somebody else got into my shoes — I 
was myself last night, but I fell asleep on the moun- 
tain, and they 've changed my gun, and everything's 
changed, and I 'm changed, and I can't tell what 's my 
name, or who I am ! " 

The bystanders began now to look at each other, 
nod, wink significantly, and tap their fingers against 
their foreheads. There was a whisper, also, about 
securing the gun, and keeping the old fellow from 
doing mischief, at the very suggestion of which the 
self-important man in the cocked hat retired with some 
precipitation. At this critical moment a fresh, comely 
woman pressed through the throng to get a peep at 
the gray-bearded man. She had a chubby child in her 
arms, which, frightened at his looks, began to cry. 
" Hush, Rip," cried she, " hush, you little fool ; the 
old man won't hurt you." The name of the child, the 
air of the mother, the tone of her voice, all awakened 
a train of recollections in his mind. " What is your 
name, my good woman?" asked he. 

" Judith Gardenier." 

" And your father's name ? " 

" Ah, poor man. Rip Van Winkle was his name, 
but it 's twenty years since he went away from home 
with his gun, and never has been heard of since, — 
his dog came home without him ; but whether he shot 
himself, or was carried away by the Indians, nobody 
can tell. I was then but a little girl." 

Rip had but one question more to ask ; and he put 
it with a faltering voice : — 



RIP VAN WINKLE. 27 

" Where 's your mother ? " 

" Oh, she too had died but a short time since ; she 
broke a blood-vessel in a fit of passion at a New Eng- 
land peddler," 

There was a drop of comfort at least, in this intel- 
ligence. The honest man could contain himself no 
longer. He caught his daughter and her child in his 
arms. " I am your father ! " cried he — " Young Eip 
Van Winkle once — old Rip Van Winkle now ! Does 
nobody know poor Rip Van Winkle ? " 

All stood amazed, until an old woman tottering out 
from among the crowd, put her hand to her brow, and 
peering under it in his face for a moment, exclaimed, 
" Sure enough it is Rip Van Winkle — it is himself ! 
Welcome home again, old neighbor — Why, where 
have you been these twenty long years?" 

Rip's story was soon told, for the whole twenty 
years had been to him but as one night. The neigh- 
bors stared when they heard it; some were seen to 
wink at each other, and put their tongues in their 
cheeks ; and the self-important man in the cocked hat, 
who when the alarm was over, had returned to tiie 
field, screwed down the corners of his mouth, and 
shook his head — upon which there was a general 
shaking of the head throughout the assemblage » 

It was determined, however, to take the opinion of 
old Peter Vanderdonk, who was seen slowly advan- 
cing up the road. He was a descendant of the histo- 
rian of that name,^ who wrote one of the earliest 
accounts of the province. Peter was the most ancient 
inhabitant of the village, and well versed in all the 
wonderful events and traditions of the neighborhood. 
He recollected Rip at once, and corroborated his story 
1 Adrian Vanderdonk. 



28 WASHINGTON IMVING. 

in the most satisfactory manner. He assured the 
company that it was a fact, handed down from his 
ancestor the historian, that the Kaatskill Mountains 
had always been haunted by strange beings. That it 
was affirmed that the great Hendrick Hudson, the first 
discoverer of the river aud country, kept a kind of 
vigil there every twenty years, with his crew of the 
Half -moon ; being permitted in this way to revisit the 
scenes of his enterprise, and keep a guardian eye upon 
the river and the great city called by his name. 
That his father had once seen them in their old Dutch 
dresses playing at ninepins in a hollow of the moun- 
tain; and that he himself had heard, one summer 
afternoon, the sound of their balls like distant peals of 
thunder. 

To make a long story short, the company broke up, 
and returned to the more important concerns of the 
election. Rip's daughter took him home to live with 
her ; she had a snug well-furnished house, and a stout 
cheery farmer for a husband, whom Rip recollected 
for one of the urchins that used to climb upon his 
back. As to Rip's son and heir, who was the ditto of 
himself, seen leaning against the tree, he was employed 
to work on the farm ; but evinced an hereditary dis- 
position to attend to anything else but his business. 

Rip now resumed his old walks and habits ; he soon 
found many of his former cronies, though all rather 
the worse for the wear and tear of time ; and preferred 
making friends among the rising generation, with 
whom he soon grew into great favor. 

Having nothing to do at home, and being arrived at 
that happy age when a man can be idle with impu- 
nity, he took his place once more on the bench at the 
inn door, and was reverenced as one of the patriarchs 



RIP VAN WINKLE. 29 

of the village, and a chronicle of the old times " before 
the war." It was some time before he could get into 
the regular track of gossip, or could be made to com- 
prehend the strange events that had taken place dur- 
ing his torpor. How that there had been a revolu- 
tionary war — that the country had thrown off the 
yoke of old England — and that, instead of being a 
subject of his Majesty George the Third, he was now 
a free citizen of the United States. Rip, in fact, was 
no politician ; the changes of states and empires made 
but little impression on him ; but there was one spe- 
cies of despotism under which he had long groaned, 
and that was — petticoat government. Happily that 
was at an end ; he had got his neck out of the yoke of 
matrimony, and could go in and out whenever he 
pleased, without dreading the tyranny of Dame Van 
Winkle. Whenever her name was mentioned, how- 
ever, he shook his head, shrugged his shoulders, and 
cast up his eyes, which might pass either for an ex- 
pression of resignation to his fate, or joy at his deliv- 
erance. 

He used to tell his story to every stranger that ar- 
rived at Mr. Doolittle's hotel. He was observed, at 
first, to vary on some points every time he told it, 
which was, doubtless, owing to his having so recently 
awaked. It at last settled down precisely to the tale 
I have related, and not a man, woman, or child in the 
neighborhood but knew it by heart. Some always 
pretended to doubt the reality of it, and insisted that 
Rip had been out of his head, and that this was one 
point on which he always remained flighty. The old 
Dutch inhabitants, however, almost universally gave 
it full credit. Even to this day they never hear a 
thunder-storm of a summer afternoon about the Kaats- 



30 WASHINGTON IRVING. 

kill, but they say Hendrick Hudson and his crew are 
at their game of ninepins ; and it is a common wish 
of all henpecked husbands in the neighborhood, when 
life hangs heavy on their hands, that they might have 
a quieting draught out of Rip Van Winkle's flagon. 

NOTE. 

The foregoing Tale, one would suspect, had been suggested to 
Mr. Knickerbocker by a little German superstition about the 
Emperor Frederick der Rothhart,^ and the Kypphaiiser moun- 
tain ; the subjoined note, however, which he had appended to the 
tale, shows that it is an absolute fact, narrated with his usual 
fidelity. 

" The story of Rip Van Winkle may seem incredible to many, 
but nevertheless I give it my full belief, for I know the vicinity 
of our old Dutch settlements to have been very subject to mar- 
vellous events and appearances. Indeed, I have heard many 
stranger stories than this, in the villages along the Hudson ; all 
of which were too well authenticated to admit of a doubt. I have 
even talked with Rip Van Winkle myself, who, when last I saw 
him, was a very old venerable man, and so perfectly rational and 
consistent on every other point, that I think no conscientious 
person could refuse to take this into the bargain ; nay, I have 
seen a certificate on the subject taken before a country justice 
and signed with a cross, in the justice's own handwriting. The 
story therefore, is beyond the possibility of doubt. 

"D. K." 

POSTSCRIPT. 

The following are travelling notes from a memorandum-book 
of Mr. Knickerbocker : — 

The Kaatsberg, or Catskill Mountains, have always been a re- 
gion full of fable. The Indians considered them the abode of 
spirits, who influenced the weather, spreading sunshine or clouds 

1 Frederick I. of Germany, 1121-1190, called Barbarossa, der 
Rothhart (Redbeard or Rufus), was fabled not to have died but 
to have gone into a long sleep, from which he would awake 
when Germany should need him. The same legend was told by 
the Danes of their Holger. 



RIP VAN WINKLE. 31 

over the landscape, and sending good or bad hunting seasons. 
They were ruled by an old squaw spirit, said to be their mother. 
She dwelt on the highest peak of the Catskills, and had charge 
of the doors of day and night to open and shut them at the 
proper hour. She hung up the new moons in the skies, and cut 
up the old ones into stars. In tunes of drought, if properly 
propitiated, she would spin light summer clouds out of cobwebs 
and morning dew, and send them off from the crest of the moun- 
tain, flake after flake, like flakes of carded cotton, to float in the 
air ; until, dissolved by the heat of the sun, they would fall in 
gentle showers, causing the grass to spring, the fruits to ripen, 
and the corn to grow an inch an hour. If displeased, however, 
she would brew up clouds black as ink, sitting in the midst of 
them like a bottle-bellied spider in the midst of its web ; and 
when these clouds broke, woe betide the valleys ! 

In old times, say the Indian traditions, there was a kind of 
Manitou or Spirit, who kept about the wildest recesses of the 
Catskill Mountains, and took a mischievous pleasure in wreaking 
all kinds of evils and vexations upon the red men. Sometimes 
he would assume the form of a bear, a panther, or a deer, lead 
the bewildered hunter a weary chase through tangled forest and 
among ragged rocks ; and then spring off with a loud ho ! ho ! 
leaving him aghast on the brink of a beetling precipice or raging 
torrent. 

The favorite abode of this Manitou is still shown. It is a 
great rock or cliff on the loneliest part of the mountains, and 
from the flowering vines which clamber about it, and the wild 
flowers which abound in its neighborhood, is known by the name 
of the Garden Rock. Near the foot of it is a small lake, the 
haunt of the solitary bittern, with water-snakes basking in the 
sun on the leaves of the pond-lilies which lie on the surface. 
This place was held in great awe by the Indians, insomuch that 
the boldest hunter would not pursue his game within its pre- 
cincts. Once upon a time, however, a hunter, who had lost his 
way, penetrated to the Garden Rock, where he beheld a number 
of gourds placed in the crotches of trees. One of these he seized 
and made off with it, but in the hurry of his retreat he let it 
fall among the rocks, when a great stream gushed forth, which 
washed him away and swept him down precipices, where he was 
dashed to pieces, and the stream made its way to the Hudson, 
and continues to flow to the present day ; being the identical 
stream known by the name of the Kaaters-kill. 



WILLIAM CULLEN BRYANT. 



BIOGRAPHICAL SKETCH. 

William Cullen Bryant was born at Cummington, 
Massachusetts, November 3, 1794 ; he died in New York, 
June 12, 1878. His first poem. The Embargo, was pub- 
lished in Boston in 1809, and was written when he was but 
thirteen years old ; his last poem, Our Fellow Worshippers, 
was published in 1878. His long life thus was a long 
career as a writer, and his first published poem prefigured 
the twofold character of his literary life, for while it was in 
poetic form it was more distinctly a political article. He 
showed very early a taste for poetry, and was encouraged 
to read and write verse by his father, Dr. Peter Bryant, a 
country physician of strong character and cultivated tastes. 
He was sent to Williams College in the fall of 1810, where 
he remained two terms, when he decided to leave and enter 
Yale College; but pecuniary troubles interfered with his 
plans, and he never completed his college course. He pur- 
sued his literary studies at home, then began the study of 
law and was admitted to the bar in 1815. Meantime he 
had been continuing to write, and during this period wrote 
with many corrections and changes the poem by which he 
is still perhaps best known, Thanatopsis. It was published 
in the North American Hevieiv for September, 1817, and 
the same periodical published a few months afterward his 
lines To a Waterfowl, one of the most characteristic and 
lovely of Bryant's poems. Literature divided his attention 
with law, but evidently had his heart. In 1821 he was 



34 WILLIAM CULLEN BRYANT. 

invited to read a poem before the Phi Beta Kappa Society 
of Harvard College, and he read The Ages, a stately grave 
poem which shows his own poetic power, his familiarity 
with the great masters of literature, and his lofty, philoso- 
phic nature. Shortly after this he issued a small volume of 
poems, and his name began to be known as that of the first 
American who had written poetry that could take its place 
in universal literature. His own decided preference for lit- 
erature, and the encouragement of friends, led to his aban- 
donment of the law in 1825, and his removal to New York, 
where he undertook the associate editorship of The New 
York Review and Athenceuin Magazi7ie. Poetic genius is 
not caused or controlled by circumstance, but a purely liter- 
ary life in a country not yet educated in literature was 
impossible to a man of no other means of support, and in a 
few months, after the Revieiv had vainly tried to maintain 
life by a frequent change of name, Bryant accepted an 
appointment as assistant editor of the Evening Post. From 
1826, then, until his death, Bryant was a journalist by pro- 
fession. One effect of this change in his life was to elimi- 
nate from his poetry that political character which was dis- 
played in his first published poem and had several times since 
shown itself. Thenceafter he threw into his journalistic 
occupation all those thoughts and experiences which niade 
him by nature a patriot and political thinker ; he reserved 
for poetry the calm reflection, love of nature, and purity of 
aspiration which made him a poet. His editorial writing 
was made strong and pure by his cultivated taste and lofty 
ideals, but he presented the rare combination of a poet who 
never sacrificed his love of high literature and his devotion 
to art, and of a publicist who retained a sound judgment 
and pursued the most practical ends. 

His life outwardly was uneventful. He made four jour- 
neys to Europe, in 1834, 1845, 1852, 1857, and he made 
frequent tours in his own country. His observations on his 
travels were published in Letters from a Traveller, Letters 



BIOGRAPHICAL SKETCH. 36 

from the East, and Letters from Spain and other Coun- 
tries. He never held public ofl&ce, except that in 1860 he 
was a presidential elector, but he was connected intimately 
with important movements in society, literature, and politics, 
and was rej^eatedly called upon to deliver addresses com- 
memorative of eminent citizens, as of Washington Irving, 
and James Fenimore Cooper, and at the unveiling of the 
bust of Mazzini in the Central Park. His Orations and 
Addresses have been gathered into a volume. 

The bulk of his poetry apart from his poetic translations 
is not considerable, and is made up almost wholly* of short 
poems which are chiefly inspired by liis love of nature. R. 
H. Dana in his preface to The Idle Man says : "I shall 
never forget with what feeling my friend Bryant some 
years ago ^ described to me the effect produced upon him by 
his meeting for the first time with Wordsworth's Ballads. 
He lived, when quite young, where but few works of poetry 
were to be had ; at a period, too, when Pope was still the 
great idol of the Temple of Art. He said that upon open- 
ing Wordsworth a thousand springs seemed to gush up at 
once in his heart, and the face of nature of a sudden to 
change into a strange freshness and life." 

This was the interpreting power of Wordsworth suddenly 
disclosing to Bryant, not the secrets of nature, but his own 
powers of perception and interpretation. Bryant is in no 
sense an imitator of Wordsworth, but a comparison of the 
two poets would be of great interest as showing how indi- 
vidually each pursued the same general poetic end. Words- 
worth's Three Years She Grew in Sun and Shower and 
Bryant's Fairest of the Rural Maids offer an admirable 
opportunity for disclosing the separate treatment of similar 
subjects. In Bryant's lines, musical and full of a gentle rev- 
ery, the poet seems to go deeper and deeper into the forest, 
almost forgetful of the " fairest of the rural maids ; " in 
Wordsworth's lines, with what simple yet profound feeling 

1 This was written in 1833. 



36 WILLIAM CULLEN BRYANT. 

the poet, after delicately disclosing the interchange of nature 
and human life, returns into those depths of human sympa- 
thy where nature must forever remain as a remote shadow. 

Bryant translated many short poems from the Spanish, 
but his largest literary undertaking was the translation of 
the Iliad and Odyssey of Homer. He brought to this task 
great requisite powers, and if there is any failure it is in the 
absence of Homer's lightness and rapidity, qualities which 
the elasticity of the Greek language especially favored. 

A pleasant touch of a simple humor appeared in some of 
his social addresses, and occasionally is found in his poems, 
as in Robert of Lincoln. Suggestions of personal experi- 
ence will be read in such poems as The Cloud on the Way, 
The Life that Is, and in the half-autobiographic poem, A 
Lifetime, 



THANATOPSIS. 

To him who in the love of Nature holds 
Communion with her visible forms, she speaks 
A various language ; for his gayer hours 
She has a voice of gladness, and a smile 
And eloquence of beauty, and she glides 5 

Into his darker musings, with a mild 
And healing sympathy, that steals away 
Their sharpness, ere he is aware. When thoughts 
Of the last bitter hour come like a blight 
Over the spirit, and sad images 10 

Of the stern agony, and shroud, and pall. 
And breathless darkness, and the narrow house, 
Make thee to shudder, and grow sick at heart ; — 
Go forth, under the open sky, and list 
To Nature's teachings, while from all around — 15 
Earth and her waters, and the depths of air — 
Comes a still voice — Yet a few days, and thee 
The all-beholding sun shall see no more 
In all his course ; nor yet in the cold ground, 
Where thy pale form was laid, with many tears, 20 
Nor in the embrace of ocean, shall exist 
Thy image. Earth, that nourished thee, shall claim 
Thy growth, to be resolved to earth again. 
And, lost each human trace, surrendering up 
Thine individual being, shalt thou go 25 

To mix for ever with the elements. 
To be a brother to the insensible rock 



38 WILLIAM CULLEN BRYANT. 

And to tlie sluggish clod, which the rude swain 
Turns with his share, and treads upon. The oak 
Shall send his roots abroad, and pierce thy mould, so 

Yet not to thine eternal resting-place 
Shalt thou retire alone, nor could st thou wish 
Couch more magnificent. Thou shalt lie down 
With patriarchs of the infant world — with kings, 
The powerful of the earth — the wise, the good, 35 
Fair forms, and hoary seers of ages past. 
All in one mighty sepulchre. The hills 
Rock-ribbed and ancient as the sun, — the vales 
Stretching in pensive quietness between ; 
The venerable woods — rivers that move 40 

In majesty, and the complaining brooks 
That make the meadows green; and, poured round 

all. 
Old Ocean's gray and melancholy waste, — 
Are but the solemn decorations all 
Of the great tomb of man. The golden sun, 45 

The planets, all the infinite host of heaven. 
Are shining on the sad abodes of death, 
Through the still lapse of ages. All that tread 
The globe are but a handful to the tribes 
That slumber in its bosom. — Take the winp-s 50 

Of morning, pierce the Barcan wilderness. 
Or lose thyself in the continuous woods 
Where rolls the Oregon, and hears no sound. 
Save his own dashings — yet the dead are there : 
And millions in those solitudes, since first 55 

The flight of years began, have laid them down 
In their last sleep — the dead reign there alone. 
So shalt thou rest, and what if thou withdraw 
In silence from the living, and no friend 



TO A WATERFOWL. 39 

Take note of thy departure ? All that breathe eo 

Will share thy destiny. The gay will laugh 
When thou art gone, the solemn brood of care 
Plod on, and each one as before will chase 
His favorite phantom ; yet all these shall leave 
Their mirth and their employments, and shall come 65 
And make their bed with thee. As the long train 
Of ages glide away, the sons of men. 
The youth in life's green spring, and he who goes 
In the full strength of years, matron and maid, 
The speechless babe, and the gray-headed man — to 
Shall one by one be gathered to thy side, 
By those, who in their turn shall follow them. 

So live, that when thy summons comes to join 
The innumerable caravan, which moves 
To that mysterious realm, where each shall take 75 
His chamber in the silent halls of death. 
Thou go not, like the quarry-slave at night. 
Scourged to his dungeon, but, sustained and soothed 
By an unfaltering trust, approach thy grave, 
Like one who wraps the drapery of his couch so 

About him, and lies down to pleasant dreams. 



TO A WATERFOWL. 

Whither, midst falling dew, 
While glow the heavens with the last steps of day, 
Far, through their rosy depths, dost thou pursue 

Thy solitary way ? 

Vainly the fowler's eye 
Might mark thy distant flight to do thee wrong, 



40 WILLIAM CULLEN BRYANT. 

As, darkly seen against the crimson sky, 
Tliy figure floats along. 

Seek'st thou the plashy brink 
Of weedy lake, or marge of river wide, lo 

Or where the rocking billows rise and sink 

Oh the chafed ocean-side ? 

There is a Power whose care 
Teaches thy way along that pathless coast — 
The desert and illimitable air — - 15 

Lone wandering, but not lost. 

All day thy wings have fanned, 
At that far height, the cold, thin atmosphere, 
Yet stoop not, weary, to the welcome land. 

Though the dark night is near. 20 

And soon that toil shall end ; 
Soon shalt thou find a summer home, and rest. 
And scream among thy fellows ; reeds shall bend, 

Soon, o'er thy sheltered nest. 

Thou 'rt gone, the abyss of heaven 25 

Hath swallowed up thy form ; yet, on my heart 
Deeply hath sunk the lesson thou hast given. 

And shall not soon depart. 

He who, from zone to zone, 
Guides through the boundless sky thy certain flight, so 
In the long way that I must tread alone. 

Will lead my steps aright. 



BENJAMIN FRANKLIN. 



BIOGRAPHICAL SKETCH. 

In reading the life of Franklin we are constantly sur- 
prised at the versatility of his powers. He achieved an un- 
dying reputation as a man of business, as a scientist, as a 
writer, as a statesman, and as a dij^lomatist. It is impossi- 
ble to give here an adequate idea of his greatness or of the 
debt of gratitude which we all owe him for the help he ren- 
dered our nation in times of sore need. For the events of 
his life the reader is referred to his Autobiography ^ — a 
classic masterpiece with which every American should be 
familiar. What follows is a review of Franklin's character 
by John T. Morse, Jr., at the end of his admirable bio- 
graphy of Franklin, in the American Statesmen Series : — 

"Among illustrious Americans Franklin stands preemi- 
nent in the interest which is aroused by a study of his char- 
acter, his mind and his career. One becomes attached to 
him, bids him farewell with regret, and feels that for such 
as he the longest span of life is all too short. Even though 
dead, he attracts a personal regard which renders easily 
intelligible the profound affection which so many men felt 
for him while living. It may be doubted whether any one 
man ever had so many, such constant, and such firm friends 
as in three different nations formed about him a veritable 
host. In the States and in France he was loved, and as he 
grew into old age he was revered, not by those who heard 

1 See Riverside Literature Series, Nos. 19 and 20. 



42 BENJAMIN FRANKLIN. 

of him only, but most warmly by those who best knew him. 
Even in England, where for years he was the arch rebel of 
all America, he was generally held in respect and esteem, 
and had many constant friends whose confidence no events 
could shake. . . . Moral, intellectual, and material boons 
he conferred in such abundance that few such benefactors 
of the race can be named, though one should survey all the 
ages. A man of a greater humanity never lived : and the 
quality which stood Abou Ben Adhem in good stead should 
suffice to save Franklin from human criticism. He not only 
loved his kind, but he also trusted them with an implicit 
confidence, reassuring if not extraordinary in an observer of 
his shrewdness and experience. . . . 

'' Franklin's inborn ambition was the noblest of all ambi- 
tions : to be of practical use to the multitude of men. The 
chief motive of his life was to promote the welfare of man- 
kind. Every moment which he could snatch from enforced 
occupations was devoted to doing, devising, or suggesting 
something advantageous more or less generally to men. . . . 
His desire was to see the community prosperous, comfortable, 
happy, advancing in the accumulation of money and of all 
physical goods, but not to the point of luxury ; it was by no 
means the pile of dollars which was his end, and he did not 
care to see many men rich, but rather to see all men well 
to do. He was perfectly right in thinking that virtuous liv- 
ing has the best prospects in a well-to-do society. He gave 
liberally of his own means and induced others to give, and 
promoted in proportion to the ability of the community a 
surprising number of public and quasi-T^vihlic enterprises; 
and always the fireside of the poor man was as much in his 
thought as the benefit of the richer circle. Fair dealing and 
kindliness, prudence and economy in order to procure the 
comforts and simpler luxuries of life, reading and knowledge 
for those uses which wisdom subserves, constituted the real 
essence of his teaching. His inventive genius was ever at 
work devising methods of making daily life more agreeable, 



BIOGRAPHICAL SKETCH. 43 

comfortable, and wholesome for all who have to live. In 
a word, the service of his fellow-men was his constant aim ; 
and he so served them that those public official functions 
which are euphemistically called ' public services ' seemed 
in his case almost an interruption of the more direct and 
far-reaching services which he was intent upon rendering to 
all civilized peoples. . . . 

" As a patriot none surpassed him. Again it was the 
love of the people that induced this feeling, which grew from 
no theory as to forms of government, no abstractions and 
doctrines about ' the rights of man.' . . . During the strug- 
gle of the States no man was more hearty in the cause than 
Franklin; and the depth of feeling shown in his letters, 
simple and unrhetorical as they are, is impressive. All that 
he had he gave. What also strikes the reader of his writ- 
ings is the broad national spirit which he manifested. He 
had an immense respect for the dignity of America ; he was 
perhaps fortunately saved from disillusionment by his dis- 
tance from home. But be this as it may, the way in which 
he felt and therefore genuinely talked about his nation and 
his country was not without its moral effect in Europe. 

" Intellectually there are few men who are Franklin's peers 
in all the ages and nations. He covered, and covered well, 
vast ground. The rejDutation of doing and knowing various 
unrelated things is wont to bring suspicion of perfunctori- 
ness ; but the ideal of the human intellect is an under- 
standing to which all knowledge and all activity are ger- 
mane. There have been a few, very few minds which have 
approximated toward this ideal, and among them Franklin's 
is prominent. He was one of the most distinguished scien- 
tists who have ever lived. Bancroft calls him ' the greatest 
diplomatist of his century.' ^ His ingenious and useful de- 
vices and inventions were very numerous. He possessed a 
masterly shrewdness in business and practical affairs. He 
was a profound thinker and preacher in morals and on the 

1 Bancroft, History of the United States, ix. 134. 



44 BENJAMIN FRANKLIN. 

conduct of life ; so that with the exception of the founders 
of great religions it would be difficult to name any persons 
who have more extensively influenced the ideas, motives, 
and habits of life of men. He was one of the most, perhaps 
the most agreeable conversationist of his age. He was a 
rare wit and humorist, and in an age when * American 
humor ' was still unborn, amid contemporaries who have 
left no trace of a jest, still less of the faintest appreciation 
of humor, all which he said and wrote was brilliant with 
both the most charming qualities of the human mind. . . . 
He was a man who impressed his ability upon all who met 
him ; so that the abler the man and the more experienced 
in judging men, the higher did he rate Franklin when 
brought into direct contact with him ; politicians and states- 
men of Europe, distrustful and sagacious, trained readers 
and valuers of men, gave him the rare honor of placing con- 
fidence not only in his personal sincerity, but in his broad 
fairmindedness, a mental quite as much as a moral trait. 

" It is hard indeed to give full expression to a man of such 
scope in morals, in mind, and in affairs. He illustrates 
humanity in an astonishing multiplicity of ways at an infi- 
nite number of points. He, more than any other, seems to 
show us how many-sided our human nature is. No individ- 
ual, of course, fills the entire circle ; but if we can imagine 
a circumference which shall express humanity, we can place 
within it no one man who will reach out to apjDroach it and 
to touch it at so many points as will Franklin. A man of 
active as well as universal good will, of perfect trustfulness 
towards all dwellers on the earth, of supreme wisdom 
expanding over all the interests of the race, none has earned 
a more kindly loyalty. By the instruction which he gave, 
by his discoveries, by his inventions, and by his achieve- 
ments in public life he earns the distinction of having ren- 
dered to men varied and useful services excelled by no other 
one man ; and thus he has established a claim upon the 
gratitude of mankind so broad that history holds few who 
can be his rivals." 



BIOGRAPHICAL SKETCH. 45 



CHRONOLOGICAL LIST OF THE PRINCIPAL EVENTS IN 
THE LIFE OF FRANKLIN. 

Born in Boston, Massachusetts .... January 17, 1*706 

Is apprenticed to his brother, a printer ..... 1718 

Begins to write for the " New England Courant " . . , 1719 

Runs away to New York, and finally to Philadelphia . . 1723 
Goes to England and works at his trade as a journeyman 

printer in London ........ 1725 

Returns to Philadelphia . 1726 

Marries 1730 

Establishes the " Philadelphia Gazette " .... 1730 
First publishes " Poor Richard s Almanac " . . . . 1732 
Is appointed Postmaster of Philadelphia .... 1737 
Establishes the Philadelphia Public Library .... 1742 
Establishes the American Philosophical Society and the Uni- 
versity of Philadelphia 1744 

Carries on the investigations by which he proves the identity 

of lightning- with electricity 1746-52 

Assists in founding a hospital . . . . . . 1751 

Is appointed Postmaster-General for the Colonies . . . 1753 
Is sent by the Assembly of the Province of Pennsylvania as an 

emissary to England in behalf of the colonists . . 1757 
Receives the degree of LL. D. from St. Andrews, Oxford, and 

Edinburgh 1764 

Procures a repeal of the Stamp Act 1766 

Is elected F. R. S., and receives the Copley Gold Medal for his 

papers on the nature of lightning ..... 1775 

Is elected to the Continental Congress 1775 

Signs the Declaration of Independence (having been one of the 

committee to draft it) ...... • 1776 

Is employed in the diplomatic service of the United States, 

chiefly at Paris 1776-85 

Is President of the Pennsylvania Supreme Council . . 1785-88 
Is a delegate to the convention to draw up the United States 

Constitution ........ 1787 

Dies at Philadelphia ....... April 17, 1791 



POOR RICHARD'S ALMANAC. 

[In Franklin's lifetime the almanac was the most popular 
form of literature in America. A few people read newspapers, 
but every farmer who could read at all had an almanac hanging 
by the fireplace. Besides the monthly calendar and movements 
of the heavenly bodies, the almanac contained anecdotes, scraps 
of useful information, and odds and ends of literature. Franklin 
began the publication of such an almanac in 1732, pretending 
that it was written by one Richard Saunders. It was pub- 
lished annually for twenty-five years. " I endeavored," says 
Franklin, " to make it both entertaining and useful ; and it ac- 
cordingly came to be in such demand, that I reaped considerable 
profit from it, vending annually near ten thousand. And observ- 
ing that it was generally read, scarce any neighborhood in the 
province being without it, I considered it as a proper vehicle 
for conveying instruction among the common people, who 
bought scarcely any other books ; I therefore filled all the little 
spaces that occurred between the remarkable days in the calendar 
with proverbial sentences, chiefly such as inculcated industry and 
frugality as the means of procuring wealth, and thereby securing 
virtue ; it being more difficult for a man in want to act always 
honestly, as, to use here one of those proverbs, ' it is hard for 
an empty sack to stand upright.' " In the almanac Franklin in- 
troduced his proverbs by the phrase Poor Richard says, as if he 
were quoting from Richard Saunders, and so the almanac came 
to be called Poor Richard's Almanac. 

" These proverbs," he continues, " which contain the wisdom 
of many ages and nations, I assembled and formed into a con- 
nected discourse, prefixed to the almanac of 1757, as the harangue 
of a wise old man to the people attending an auction. The 
bringing all these scattered counsels thus into a focus enabled 
them to make greater impression. The piece, being universally 
approved, was copied in all the newspapers of the continent 
[that is, the American continent] ; reprinted in Britain on a 



POOR RICHARD'S ALMANAC. 47 

broadside, to be stuck up in houses ; two translations were made 
of it in French, and great numbers bought by the clergy and 
gentry, to distribute gratis among their poor parishioners and 
tenants. In Pennsylvania, as it discouraged useless expense in 
foreign superfluities, some thought it had its share of influence 
in producing that growing plenty of money which was observable 
for several years after its publication." 

Franklin's example was followed by other writers, — Noah 
Webster, the maker of dictionaries, among them ; and one can 
see in the popular almanacs of to-day, such as The Old Farmer's 
Almanac, the effect of Franklin's style. When the king of France 
gave Captain John PaulJones a ship with which to make attacks 
upon British merchantmen in the war for independence, it was 
named, out of compliment to Franklin, the Bon Homme Richard, 
which might be translated Clever Richard. The pages which 
follow are the connected discourse prefixed to the almanac of 
1757.] 

Courteous Keader : — 

I have heard that nothing gives an author so great 
pleasure as to find his works respectfully quoted by 
other learned authors. This pleasure I have seldom 
enjoyed. For though I have been, if I may say it 
without vanity, an eminent author of Almanacs annu- 
ally, now for a full quarter of a century, my brother 
authors in the same way, for what reason I know not, 
have ever been very sparing in their applauses ; and 
no other author has taken the least notice of me ; so 
that did not my writings produce me some solid pud- 
ding, the great deficiency of praise would have quite 
discouraged me. 

I concluded at length, that the people were the best 
judges of my merit ; for they buy my works ; and 
besides, in my rambles, where I am not personally 
known, I have frequently heard one or other of my 
adages repeated, with as Poor Richard says at the 
end of it. This gave me some satisfaction, as it 



48 BENJAMIN FRANKLIN, 

showed, not only that my instructions were regarded, 
but discovered likewise some respect for my authority ; 
and I own, that to encourage the practice of remem- 
bering and repeating those sentences, I have some- 
times quoted myself with great gravity. 

Judge, then, how much I must have been gratified 
by an incident I am going to relate to you. I stopped 
my horse lately where a great number of people were 
collected at a vendue of merchant's goods. The hour 
of sale not being come, they were conversing on the 
badness of the times ; and one of the company called 
to a plain, clean old man with white locks, " Pray, 
Father Abraham, what think you of the times ? Won't 
these heavy taxes quite ruin the country? How shall 
we ever be able to pay them? What would you advise 
us to?" Father Abraham stood up and replied ; " If 
you would have my advice, I will give it you in short ; 
for A word to the tvise is enough, and Many words 
wonH fill a hushel, as Poor Kichard says." They all 
joined, desiring him to speak his mind, and gathering 
round him, he proceeded as follows: — 

Friends, says he, and neighbors, the taxes are in- 
deed very heavy, and if those laid on by the govern- 
ment were the only ones we had to pay, we might the 
more easily discharge them ; but we have many others, 
and much more grievous to some of us. We are taxed 
twice as much by our idleness, three times as much 
by our pride, and four times as much by our folly ; 
and from these taxes the commissioners cannot ease 
or deliver us, by allowing an abatement. However, let 
us hearken to good advice, and something may be done 
for us; God helps them that helps themselves, as Poor 
Richard says in his Almanac of 1733. 

It would be thought a hard government that should 



POOR RICHARD'S ALMANAC. 49 

tax its peoj^le one tenth part of their time, to be em- 
ployed in its service, but idleness taxes many of us 
much more, if we reckon all that is spent in absolute 
sloth, or doing of nothing ; with that which is spent 
in idle employments or amusements that amount to 
nothing. Sloth, by bringing on diseases, absolutely 
shortens life. Sloth, like rust, consumes faster than 
labor tvears ; ichile the used key is ahcays bright, as 
Poor Richard says. But dost thou love life f then do 
not squander time, for that 's the stuff life is made of, 
as Poor Richard says. 

How much more that is necessary do we spend in 
sleep? forgetting, that the sleeping fox catches no 
poultry, and that there will be sleejnng enough in the 
grave, as Poor Richard says. If time be of all things 
the most precious, icastiiig of time must be, as Poor 
Richard says, the g7'eatest prodigality ; since, as he 
elsewhere tells us, lost time is never found again ; and 
what we call time enough ! ahoays proves little enough. 
Let us then up and be doing, and doing to the purpose ; 
so, by diligence, shall we do more with less perplexity. 
Sloth makes all things dAfficidt, but industry all 
things easy, as Poor Richard says ; and He that riseth 
late must trot all day, and shall scarce overtake his 
business at night ; while laziness travels so slowly 
that Poverty soon overtakes him, as we read in Poor 
Richard ; who adds. Drive thy business ! let not that 
drive thee ! and — 

Early to bed and early to rise 

Makes a man healthy, wealthy and wise. 

So what signifies wishing and hojnng for better 
times ? We may make these times better, if we bestir 
ourselves. Industry need not wish, as Poor Richard 
says, and He that lives on hope ivill die fasting. 



60 BENJAMIN FRANKLIN. 

There are no gains without pains ; then help^ hands! 
for I have no lands ; or, if I have, they are smartly 
taxed. And, as Poor Kichard likewise observes, He 
that hath a trade hath an estate^ and he that hath a 
calling hath an office of profit and honor ; but then 
the trade must be worked at, and the calling well fol- 
lowed, or neither the estate nor the office will enable 
us to pay our taxes. If we are industrious we shall 
never starve ; for, as Poor Richard says. At the worh- 
ing-man^s house hunger looks in, hut dares not enter. 
Nor will the bailiff or the constable enter, for Industry/ 
pays debts, while despair increaseth them. 

What though you have found no treasure, nor has 
any rich relation left you a legacy. Diligence is the 
mother of good luch, as Poor Richard says, and God 
gives all things to industry. 

Then plough deep lohile sluggards sleep, 
Atid you shall have corn to sell and to keep, 

says Poor Dick. Work while it is called to-day, for 
you know not how much you may be hindered to- 
morrow ; which makes Poor Richard say, 07ie to-day 
is worth two to-morrows ; and farther, Have you 
somewhat to do to-morrow f Do it to-day 1 

If you were a servant, would you not be ashamed 
that a good master should catch you idle ? Are you 
then your own master ? Be ashamed to catch your- 
self idle, as Poor Dick says. When there is so much 
to be done for yourself, your family, your country, 
and your gracious king, be up by peep of day ! Let 
not the sun looh down and say, " Inglorious here he 
lies 1 " Handle your tools without mittens ! remem- 
ber that The cat in gloves catches no mice I as Poor 
Richard says. 



POOR RICHARD'S ALMANAC. 51 

'T is true there is much to be done, and perhaps 
you are weak-handed ; but stick *to it steadily, and you 
will see great effects ; for Constant dropping wears 
aumy stones ; and By diligence and patience the 
mouse ate in two the cable ; and Little strokes fell 
great oaks ; as Poor Kichard says in his Almanac, 
the year I cannot just now remember. 

Methinks I hear some of you say, " Must a man 
afford himself no leisure ? " I will tell thee, my 
friend, what Poor Eichard says. Employ thy time 
well, if thou mealiest to gain leisure ; and Since thou 
art not sure of a minute, throw not away an hour ! 
Leisure is time for doing something useful ; this lei- 
sure the diligent man will obtain, but the lazy man 
never ; so that, as Poor Richard says, A life of leisure 
and a life of laziness are two things. Do you im- 
agine that sloth will afford you more comfort than 
labor? No! for, as Poor Richard says, Trouble 
springs from idleness, and grievous toil from needless 
ease. Many, without labor, woidd live by their tvits 
only, but they HI break for want of stock [i. e. capi- 
tal] ; whereas industry gives comfort, and plenty, and 
respect. Fly pleasures, and they HI follow you. The 
diligent spinner has a large shift ; and — 

Noiv I have a sheep and a cow, 
Everybody bids me good morroiv. 

All which is well said by Poor Richard. But with 
our industry we must likewise be steady, settled, and 
careful, and oversee our own affairs with our own 
eyes, and not trust too much to others ; for, as Poor 
Richard says, — 

/ never saw an oft-removed tree 

Nor yet an oft-removed family 

That throve so well as those that settled he. 



52 BENJAMIN FRANKLIN. 

And again, Three removes are as had as a fire ; 
and again, Keejp thy shop^ and thy shop will keep 
thee ; and again, If you would have your business 
done, go ; if not, send. And again, — 

He that by the plough would thrive, 

Himself must either hold or drive. 

And again, The eye of the master will do more 
work than hoth his hands ; and again, Wa?it of care 
does us more damage than want of knowledge ; and 
again, JVot to oversee workmen is to leave them your 
purse open. 

Trusting too much to others' care is the ruin of 
many ; for, as the Almanac says, In the affairs of 
this world men are saved, not by faith, but by the 
want of it ; but a man's own care is profitable ; for 
saith Poor Dick, Learning is to the studious, and 
Riches to the careful ; as well as. Power to the bold, 
and Heaven to the virtuous. And further, If you 
would have a faithful servant, and one that you like, 
serve yourself. 

And again, he adviseth to circumspection and care, 
even in the smallest matters; because sometimes, A 
little neglect may breed great mischief ; adding, /br 
want of a nail the shoe was lost ; for want of a shoe 
the horse was lost ; and for want of a horse the rider 
was lost ; being overtaken and slain by the enemy ; 
all for want of a little care about a horse-shoe nail ! 

So much for industry, my friends, and attention to 
one's own business ; but to these we must add frugal- 
ity, if we would make our industry more certainly suc- 
cessful. A man may, if he knows not how to save as 
he gets, keep his nose all his life to the grindstone, 
and die not worth a groat at last. A fat kitchen 
makes a lean will, as Poor Richard says ; and — 



POOR RICHARD'S ALMANAC. 53 

Many estates are spent in the getting, 

Since women for tea '^forsook spinning and knitting, 

And men for punch forsook hewing and splitting. 

If you would be wealthy, says lie in another Al- 
manac, Think of saving as well as of gettiyig. The 
Indies have not made Spain rich ; because her out- 
goes are greater than her incomes. 

Away, then, with your expensive follies, and you 
will not have so much cause to complain of hard 
times, heavy taxes, and chargeable families ; for, as 
Poor Dick says, — 

Women and wine, game and deceit. 
Make the wealth small and the wants great. 

And farther, WTiat maintains one vice would bring 
up two children. You may think, perhaps, that a 
little tea, or a little punch now and then ; a diet a 
little more costly ; clothes a little more finer ; and 
a little more entertainment now and then, can be no 
great matter ; but remember what Poor Richard says. 
Many a little makes a mickle ; and further. Beware 
of little expenses; A small leak will sink a great 
ship ; and again, — 

Who dainties love, shall beggars prove ; 

and moreover. Fools make feasts^ and wise men eat 
them. 

Here are you all got together at this vendue of 
fineries and knick-knacks. You call them goods ; 
but if' you do not take care, they will prove evils to 
some of you. You expect they will be sold cheap, 
and perhaps they may for less than they cost ; but, if 
you have no occasion for them, they must be dear to 

^ Tea at this time was a costly drink, and was regarded as a 
luxury. 



54 BENJAMIN FRANKLIN. 

you. Remember what Poor Richard says : Buy what 
thou hast no need of^ and ere long thou shalt sell thy 
necessaries. And again, At a great i^ennyworth j)ause 
a while. He means, that perhaps the cheapness is 
apparent only, and not real ; or the bargain by strait- 
ening thee in thy business, may do thee more harm 
than good. For in another place he says, Many have 
heen ruined hy buying good pennyworths. 

Again, Poor Richard says, ^T is foolish to lay out 
money in a purchase of repentance ; and yet this 
folly is practised every day at vendues for want of 
minding the Almanac. 

Wise me7i, as Poor Richard says, learii hy others^ 
harms ; Fools scarcely hy their own ; but Felix 
quemfaciunt aliena pericula cautum.^ Many a one, 
for the sake of finery on the back, has gone with a 
hungry belly, and half -starved their families. Silks 
and satins^ scarlets and velvets, as Poor Richard 
sa.js, put oiit the hitchen fire. These are not the ne- 
cessaries of life ; they can scarcely be called the con- 
veniences ; and yet, only because they look pretty, how 
many want to have them! The artificial wants of 
mankind thus become more numerous than the nat- 
ural ; and, as Poor Dick says. For one poor jjerson 
there are a hundred indigent. 

By these, and other extravagances, the genteel are 
reduced to poverty, and forced to borrow of those 
whom they formerly despised, but who, through in- 
dustry and frugality, have maintained their standing ; 
in which case it appears plainly, that A ploughman 
on his legs is higher than a gentleman on his knees, 
as Poor Richard says. Perhaps they have had a 

1 He 's a lucky fellow who is made prudent by other men's 
perils. 



POOR RICHARD'S ALMANAC, 55 

small estate left them, which they knew not the get- 
ting of; they think, ' T is day^ and will never he 
night ; that a little to he sj^ent out of so much is not 
worth minding ; (J. child and a fool ^ as Poor Rich- 
ard says, imagine twenty shillings and twenty years 
can never be spent,) but Always taking out of the 
meal-tuh^ and never jmtting in^ soon comes to the 
hottom. Then, as Poor Dick says, When the well 's 
dry^ they know the worth of water. But this they 
might have known before, if they had taken his ad- 
vice. If you would know the value of money^ go 
and try to horrow some ; for He that goes a horrow- 
ing, goes a sorrowing, and indeed so does he that 
lends to such people, when he goes to get it in again. 
Poor Dick further advises, and says — 

JFond pride of dress is, sure a very curse ; 
Ere fancy you consult, consult your purse. 

And again. Pride is as loud a heggar as Want, and 
a great deal more saucy. When you have bought 
one fine thing, you must buy ten more, that your ap- 
pearance may be all of a piece ; but Poor Dick says, 
^T is easier to suppress the first desire, than to sat- 
isfy cdl that follow it. And 't is as truly folly for 
the poor to ape the rich, as for the frog to swell in 
order to equal the ox. 

Great estates may venture more, 

But little boats should keep near sTiore. 

*T is, however, a folly soon punished ; for, Pride 
that dines on vanity sups on contempt, as Poor Rich- 
ard says. And in another place. Pride hreakfasted 
with Plenty, dined with Poverty, and supped with 
Infamy. 

And after all, of what use is this pride of appear- 



56 BENJAMIN FRANKLIN. 

ance, for which so much is risked, so much is suffered ? 
It cannot promote health or ease pain ; it makes no 
increase of merit in the person ; it creates envy ; it 
hastens misfortune. 

What is a butterfly ? At best 
He 's but a caterpillar drest, ^ 
The gaudy fop's his j^icture Just, 

as Poor Kichard says. 

But what madness must it be to run into debt for 
these superfluities ! We are offered, by the terms of 
this vendue, six months' credit ; and that, perhaps, 
has induced some of us to attend it, because we cannot 
spare the ready money, and hope now to be fine with- 
out it. But, ah ! think what you do when you run in 
debt : Yoic give to another power over your liberty. 
If you cannot pay at the time, you will be ashamed to 
see your creditor ; you will be in fear when you speak 
to him ; you will make poor, pitiful, sneaking excuses, 
and by degrees come to lose your veracity, and sink 
into base, downright lying ; for, as Poor Richard says. 
The second vice is lying, the first is running into 
debt; and again, to the same purpose, lying rides 
upon debfs back ; whereas a free-born Englishman 
ought not to be ashamed or afraid to see or speak to 
any man living. But poverty often deprives a man of 
all spirit and virtue. ^ Tis hard for an emptty bag to 
stand upright 1 as Poor Richard truly says. What 
would you think of that prince, or the government, 
who should issue an edict forbidding you to dress like 
a gentleman or gentlewoman, on pain of imprisonment 
or servitude ? Would you not say that you are free, 
have a right to dress as you please, and that such an 
edict would be a breach of your privileges, and such a 
government tyrannical? And yet you are about to 



POOR RICHARD'S ALMANAC. 57 

put yourself under such tyranny, when you run in 
debt for such dress ! Your creditor has authority, at 
his pleasure, to deprive you of your liberty, by con- 
fining you in jail for life, or to sell you for a servant, 
if you should not be able to pay him.^ When you 
have got your bargain, you may, perhaps, think little 
of payment ; but Creditors (Poor Richard tells us) 
have better memories than debtors ; and in another 
place says, Creditors are a siqjerstitious set, great ob- 
servers of set days and times. The day comes round 
before you are aware, and the demand is made before 
you are prepared to satisfy it ; or, if you bear your 
debt in mind, the term which at first seemed so long, 
will, as it lessens, appear extremely short. Time will 
seem to have added wings to his heels as well as his 
shoulders. Those have a short Lent, saith Poor 
Richard, who oice money to be paid at Easter. Then 
since, as he says. The borrower is a slave to the 
lender, and the debtor to the creditor, disdain the 
chain, preserve your freedom, and maintain your in- 
dependency. Be industrious and free ; be frugal 
and free. At present, perhaps, you may think your- 
self in thriving circumstances, and that you can bear 
a little extravagance without injury ; but — 

For age and ivant, save while you may, 
No morning sun lasts a ivhole day. 

As Poor Richard says, gain may be temporary and 
uncertain ; but ever, while you live, expense is con- 
stant and certain ; and ' Tis easier to build two chim- 
neys than to heep one in fuel, as Poor Richard says ; 
so, Rather go to bed supperless than rise in debt. 

^ At the time when this was written, and for many years af- 
terward, the laws against bankrupts and poor debtors were ex- 
tremely severe. 



68 BENJAMIN FRANKLIN. 

Get what you can and what you get hold; 

' T is the stone that will turn all your lead into gold,^ 

as Poor Richard says ; and, when you have got the 
Philosopher's stone, sure, you will no longer complain 
of bad times or the difficulty of paying taxes. 

This doctrine, my friends, is reason and wisdom ; 
but, after all, do not depend too much upon your own 
industry and frugality and prudence, though excel- 
lent things ; for they may all be blasted without the 
blessing of Heaven ; and therefore, ask that blessing 
humbly, and be not uncharitable to those that at pres- 
ent seem to want it, but comfort and help them. Re- 
member Job suffered, and was afterwards prosperous. 

And now, to conclude. Experience keeps a dear 
school^ hut fools will learn in no other, and scarce in 
that ; for it is true. We may give advice, hit we can- 
not give conduct, as poor Richard says. However, 
remember this. They that wonH he counselled, canH 
he helped, as Poor Richard says ; and further, that, 7j^ 
you will not hear reason, she ^11 surely rap your 
hnuchles. 

Thus the old gentleman ended his harangue. The 
people heard it, and approved the doctrine ; and im- 
mediately practised the contrary, just as if it had been 
a common sermon. For the vendue opened, and they 
began to buy extravagantly, notwithstanding all his 
cautions, and their own fear of taxes. I found the 
good man had thoroughly studied my Almanacs, and 
digested all I had dropped on those topics during the 
course of five-and-twenty years. The frequent men- 

1 In the Middle Ages there was a great search made for the 
philosopher's stone, as it was called, a mineral which should 
have the power of turning base metals into gold. 



POOR RICHARD'S ALMANAC. 59 

tion he made of me must have tired any one else ; but 
my vanity was wonderfully delighted with it, though 
I was conscious that not a tenth part of the wisdom 
was my own which he ascribed to me, but rather the 
gleanings that I had made of the sense of all ages and 
nations. However, I resolved to be the better for the 
echo of it ; and, though I had at first determined to 
buy stuff for a new coat, I went away resolved to 
wear my old one a little longer. Reader, if thou wilt 
do the same, thy profit will be as great as mine. I 
am, as ever, thine to serve thee, 

Richard Saunders. 

July 7, 1757. 



From " Poor Richard's Almanac," 1756. 

PLAN FOR SAVING ONE HUNDRED THOUSAND 
POUNDS. 

As I spent some weeks last winter in visiting my 
old acquaintance in the Jerseys, great complaints I 
heard for want of money, and that leave to make 
more paper bills could not be obtained. Friends and 
countrymen, my advice on this head shall cost you 
nothing ; and, if you will not be angry with me for 
giving it, I promise you not to be offended if you do 
not take it. 

You spend yearly at least two hundred thousand 
pounds^ it is said, in European, East-Indian, and 
West-Indian commodities. Suppose one half of this 
expense to be in things absolutely necessary^ the other 
half may be called superfluities^ or, at best, conven- 
iencies, which, however, you might live without for 
one little year, and not suffer exceedingly. Now, to 
save this half, observe these few directions : — 



60 BENJAMIN FRANKLIN. 

1. When you incline to have new clothes, look first 
well over the old ones, and see if you cannot shift with 
them another year, either by scouring, mending, or 
even patching if necessary. Remember, a patch on 
your coat, and money in your pocket, is better and 
more creditable than a writ on your back, and no 
money to take it off. 

2. When you are inclined to buy China ware, 
chintzes, India silks, or any other of their flimsy, slight 
manufactures, I would not be so bad with you as to in- 
sist on your absolutely resolving against it; all I ad- 
vise is, to 2^ut it off (as you do your repentance) till 
another year ; and this, in some respects, may prevent 
an occasion of repentance. 



TO SAMUEL MATHER. 

Passy, May 12, 1784. 
I received your kind letter, with your excellent ad- 
vice to the people of the United States, which I read 
with great pleasure, and hope it will be duly regarded. 
Such writings, though they may be lightly passed over 
by many readers, yet, if they make a deep impression 
on one active mind in a hundred, the effects may be 
considerable. Permit me to mention one little in- 
stance, which, though it relates to myself, will not be 
quite miinteresting to you. When I was a boy, I met 
with a book entitled, " Essays to do Good," which I 
think was written by your father. ^ It had been so 
little regarded by a former possessor, that several 
leaves of it were torn out ; but the remainder gave me 
such a turn of thinking, as to have an influence on my 
conduct through life, for I have always set a greater 
1 Cotton Mather. — Ed. 



FAMILIAR LETTERS. 61 

value on the character of a doer of good than on any- 
other kind of reputation ; and if I have been, as you 
seem to think, a useful citizen, the public owes the ad- 
vantage of it to that book. 

You mention your being in your seventy-eighth year. 
I am in my seventy-ninth year ; we are growing old to- 
gether. It is now more than sixty years since I left 
Boston, but I remember well both your father and 
grandfather, having heard them both in the pulpit 
and seen them in their houses. The last time I saw 
your father was in the beginning of 1724, when I 
visited him after my first trip to Pennsylvania. He 
received me in his library, and on my taking leave 
showed me a shorter way out of the house through a 
narrow passage, which was crossed by a beam over- 
head. We were still talking as I withdrew, he accom- 
panying me behind, and I turning partly towards him, 
when he said hastily, " Stoop, stoop ! " I did not un- 
derstand him till I felt my head hit against the beam. 
He was a man that never missed any occasion of giv- 
ing instruction, and upon this he said to me, " You 
are young ^ and have the ujorld before you; stoop 
as you go through it^ and you will miss many hard 
thumj)sr This advice, thus beat into my head, has 
frequently been of use to me ; and I often think of it 
when I see pride mortified, and misfortunes brought 
upon people by their carrying their heads too high. 

TO THE REV. DR. LATHROP, BOSTON. 

Philadelphia, 31 May, 1788. 

Reverend Sir : I received your obliging favor 
of the 6th instant by Mr. Hillard, with whose conver- 
sation I was much pleased, and would have been glad 
to have had more of it if he would have spared it to 



62 BENJAMIN FRANKLIN. 

me ; but the short time of his stay has prevented. 
You need make no apology for introducing any of 
your friends to me. I consider it as doing me honor, 
as well as giving me pleasure. I thank you for the 
pamphlet of the Humane Society. In return, please 
to accept one of the same kind, which was published 
while I resided in France. If your Society have not 
hitherto seen it, it may possibly afford them useful 
hints. 

It would certainly, as you observe, be a very great 
pleasure to me if I could once again visit my native 
town, and walk over the grounds I used to frequent 
when a boy, and where I enjoyed many of the inno- 
cent pleasures of youth, which would be so brought to 
my remembrance, and where I might find some of my 
old acquaintance to converse with. But when I con- 
sider how well I am situated here, with everything 
about me that I can call either necessary or conven- 
ient ; the fatigues and bad accommodations to be met 
with and suffered in a land journey, and the unpleas- 
antness of sea voyages to one who, although he has 
crossed the Atlantic eight times and made many smaller 
trips, does not recollect his having ever been at sea 
without taking a firm resolution never to go to sea 
again ; and that, if I were arrived in Boston, I should 
see but little of it, as I could neither bear walking nor 
riding in a carriage over its pebbled streets; and, 
above all, that I should find very few indeed of my old 
friends living, it being now sixty-five years since I left 
it to settle here, — all this considered, I say, it seems 
probable, though not certain, that I shall hardly again 
visit that beloved place. But I enjoy the company 
and conversation of its inhabitants, when any of them 
are so good as to visit me ; for, besides their general 



FAMILIAR LETTERS. 63 

good sense, which I value, the Boston manner, turn of 
phrase, and even tone of voice and accent in pronun- 
ciation, all please, and seem to refresh and revive me. 

I have been long impressed with the same sentiments 
you so well express of the growing felicity of man- 
kind, from the improvements in philosophy, morals, 
politics, and even the conveniences of common living, 
and the invention and acquisition of new and useful 
utensils and instruments, so that I have sometimes 
almost wished it had been my destiny to be born two 
or three centuries hence ; for invention and improve- 
ment are prolific, and beget more of their kind. The 
present progress is rapid'. Many of great importance, 
now unthought of, will before that period be pro- 
duced ; and then I might not only enjoy their advan- 
tages, but have my curiosity gratified in knowing what 
they are to be. I see a little absurdity in what I have 
just written ; but it is to a friend, who will wink and 
let it pass, while I mention one reason more for such a 
wish, which is, that, if the art of physic shall be im- 
proved in proportion to other arts, we may then be 
able to avoid diseases, and live as long as the patri- 
archs in Genesis, to which I suppose we should have 
little objection. 

I am glad my dear sister has so good and kind a 
neighbor. I sometimes suspect she may be backward 
in acquainting me with circumstances in which I might 
be more useful to her. If any such should occur to 
your observation, your mentioning them to me will be 
a favor I shall be thankful for. 

With great esteem, I have the honor to be, reverend 
sir, your most obedient and most humble servant, 

B. Franklin. 



64 BENJAMIN FRANKLIN. 



TO BENJAMIN WEBB. 

Passy, 22 April, 1784. 
I received yours of the 15th instant, and the memo- 
rial it enclosed. The account they give of your sit- 
uation grieves me. I send you herewith a bill for ten 
louis d'ors. I do not pretend to give such a sum ; I 
only lend it to you. When you shall return to your 
country with a good character, you cannot fail of get- 
ting into some business that will in time enable you 
to pay all your debts. In that case, when you meet 
with another honest man in similar distress, you must 
pay me by lending this sum to him ; enjoining him to 
discharge the debt by a like operation when he shall 
be able, and shall meet with such another opportunity. 
I hope it may thus go through many hands before it 
meets with a knave that will stop its progress. This 
is a trick of mine for doing a deal of good with a little 
money. I am not rich enough to afford mucJi in good 
works, and so am obliged to be cunning^ and make 
the most of a little. With best wishes for the success 
of your memorial and your future prosperity, I am, 
dear sir, your most obedient servant, 

B. Franklin. 



OLIVER WENDELL HOLMES. 



BIOGRAPHICAL SKETCH. 

Oliver Wendell Holmes was born at Cambridge, 
Massachusetts, August 29, 1809. The house in which he 
was born stood between the sites now occupied by the Hem- 
enway Gymnasium and the Law School of Harvard Uni- 
versity, and was of historic interest as having been the head- 
quarters of General Artemas Ward, and of the Committee 
of Safety in the days just before the Revolution. Upon 
the steps of the house stood President Langdon, of Har- 
vard College, tradition says, and prayed for the men who, 
halting there a few moments, marched forward under Colo- 
nel Prescott's lead to throw up intrenchments on Bunker 
Hill on the night of June 16, 1775. Dr. Holmes's father 
carried forward the traditions of the old house, for he was 
Rev. Dr. Abiel Holmes, whose American Annals was the 
first careful record of American history written after the 
Revolution. 

Born and bred in the midst of historic associations. 
Holmes had from the first a lively interest in American his- 
tory and politics, and though possessed of strong humorous 
gifts, has often turned his song into patriotic channels, while 
the current of his literary life has been distinctly American. 

He began to write poetry when in college at Cambridge, 
and some of his best-known early pieces, like Evening, hy a 
Tailor, The Meeting of the Dryads, The Spectre Pig, were 
contributed to the Collegian, an undergraduate journal, while 
he was studying law the year after his graduation. At the 



QQ OLIVER WENDELL HOLMES. 

same time he wrote the well-known poem Old Ironsides^ a 
protest against the proposed breaking ujd of the frigate Con- 
stitution ; the poem was printed in the Boston Daily Adver- 
tiser, and its indignation and fervor carried it through the 
country, and raised such a popular feeling that the ship was 
saved from an ignominious destruction. Holmes shortly 
gave up the study of law, went abroad to study medicine, 
and returned to take his degree at Harvard in 1836. At 
the same time he delivered a poem, Poetry : a Metrical 
Essay, before the Phi Beta Kappa Society of Harvard, and 
ever since his profession of medicine and his love of litera- 
ture have received his united care and thought. In 1838 
he was appointed Professor of Anatomy and Physiology at 
Dartmouth College, but remained there only a year or two, 
when he returned to Boston, married, and practised medi- 
cine. In 1847 he was made Parkman Professor of Anat- 
omy and Physiology in the Medical School of Harvard Col- 
lege, a position which he retained until the close of 1882, 
when he retired, to devote himself more exclusively to liter- 
ature. 

In 1857, when the Atlantic Monthly was established, 
Professor Lowell, who was asked to be editor, consented on 
condition that Dr. Holmes should be a regular contributor. 
Dr. Holmes at that time was known as the author of a num- 
ber of poems of grace, life, and wit, and he had published 
several professional j^apers and books, but his brilliancy as a 
talker gave him a strong local reputation, and Lowell 
shrewdly guessed that he would bring to the new magazine 
a singularly fresh and unusual power. He was right, for 
The Autocrat of the Breakfast- Table, beginning in the 
first number, unquestionably insured the Atlantic its early 
success. The readers of the day had forgotten that Holmes, 
twenty-five years before, had begun a series with the same 
title in Buckingham's New England Magazine, a periodi- 
cal of short life, so they did not at first understand why he 
should begin his first article, " I was just going to say when 



BIOGRAPHICAL SKETCH. 67 

I was interrupted." From that time Dr. Holmes was a 
frequent contributor to the magazine, and in it appeared 
successively, The Autocrat of the Breakfast-Table, The Pro- 
fessor at the Breakfast-Tahle, The Professor's Story (after- 
ward called Elsie Vernier), The Guardian Angel, The Poet 
at the Breakfast- Tahle,The New Portfolio (afterward called 
A Mortal Antipathy), Our Hundred Days in Europe, and 
Over the Teacups, — prose papers and stories with occa- 
sional insertion of verse ; here also have been printed the 
many poems which he has so freely and happily written for 
festivals and public occasions, including the frequent poems 
at the yearly meetings of his college class. The wit and 
humor which have made his poetry so well known would 
never have given him his high rank had they not been asso- 
ciated with an admirable art which makes every word ne- 
cessary and felicitous, and a generous nature which is quick 
to seize upon what touches a common life. 



GRANDMOTHER'S STORY OF BUNKER HILL 
BATTLE. 

AS SHE SAW IT FROM THE BELFRY. 

[This poem was first published in 1875, in connection 
with the centenary of the battle of Bunker Hill. The bel- 
fry could hardly have been that of Christ Church, since tra- 
dition says that General Gage was stationed there watching 
the battle, and we may make it to be what was known as 
the New Brick Church, built in 1721, on Hanover, corner 
of Richmond Street, Boston, rebuilt of stone in 1845, and 
pulled down at the widening of Hanover Street in 1871. 
There are many narratives of the battle of Bunker Hill. 
Frothingham's History of the Siege of Boston is one of the 
most comprehensive accounts, and has furnished material 
for many pojDular narratives. The centennial celebration 
of the battle called out magazine and newspaper articles, 
which give the story with little variation. There are not 
many disputed points in connection with the event, the prin- 
cipal one being the discussion as to who was the chief 
officer.] 

'T IS like stirring living embers when, at eighty, one 

remembers 
All the achings and the quakings of " the times tkat 

tried men's souls ; " 

2. In December, 1776, Thomas Paine, whose Common Sense had 
so remarkable a popularity as the first homely expression of 
public opinion on Independence, began issuing a series of tracts 
called The Crisis, eighteen numbers of which appeared. The fa- 
miliar words quoted by the grandmother must often have been 



GRANDMOTHER'S STORY. 69 

When I talk of Whig and Torij, when I tell the Rebel 
story, 

To you the words are ashes, but to me they 're burn- 
ing coals. 

I had heard the muskets' rattle of the April running 

battle ; 5 

Lord Percy's hunted soldiers, I can see their red coats 

still; 
But a deadly chill comes o'er me, as the day looms up 

before me, 
When a thousand men lay bleeding on the slopes of 

Bunker's HiU. 

heard and used by her. They begin the first number of The 
Crisis : " These are the times that try men's souls : the summer 
soldier and the sunshine patriot will, in this crisis, shrink from 
the service of his country ; but he that stands it now deserves 
the love and thanks of man and woman." 

3. The terms Whig and Tori/ were applied to the two parties 
in England who represented, respectively, the Whigs political 
and religious liberty, the Tories royal prerogative and ecclesias- 
tical authority. The names first came into use in 1679 in the 
struggles at the close of Charles II. 's reign, and continued in use 
until a generation or so ago, when they gave place to somewhat 
corresponduig terms of Liberal and Conservative. At the break- 
mg out of the war for Independence, the Whigs m England op- 
posed the measures taken by the crown in the management of 
the American colonies, while the Tories supported the crown. 
The names were naturally applied in America to the patriotic 
party, who were termed Whigs, and the loyalist party, termed 
Tories. The Tories in turn called the patriots rebels. 

5. The Lexington and Concord affair of April 19, 1775, when 
Lord Percy's soldiers retreated in a disorderly manner to 
Charlestown, annoyed on the way by the Americans who fol- 
lowed and accompanied them. 



70 OLIVER WENDELL HOLMES. 

'T was a peaceful summer's morning, when the first 

thing gave us warning 
Was the booming of the cannon from the river and 

the shore : lo 

" Child," says grandma, " what 's the matter, what is 

all this noise and clatter ? 
Have those scalping Indian devils come to murder us 

once more ? " 

Poor old soul ! my sides were shaking in the midst of 
all my quaking, 

To hear her talk of Indians when the guns began to 
roar: 

She had seen the burning village, and the slaughter 
and the pillage, 15 

When the Mohawks killed her father with their bul- 
lets through his door. 

Then I said, " Now, dear old granny, don't you fret 

and worry any. 
For I '11 soon come back and tell you whether this is 

work or play ; 
There can't be mischief in it, so I won't be gone a 

minute " — 
For a minute then I started. I was gone the livelong 

day. 20 

No time for bodice-lacing or for looking-glass grima- 
cing ; 

16. The Mohawks, a formidable part of the Six Nations, were 
held in great dread, as they were the most cruel and warlike of 
all the tribes. In connection with the French they fell upon the 
frontier settlements during Queen Anne's war, early in the 
eighteenth century, and committed terrible deeds, long remem- 
bered in New England households. 



GRANDMOTHER'S STORY. 71 

Down my hair went as I hurried, tumbling half-way 
to my heels ; 

God forbid your ever knowing, when there 's blood 
around her flowing. 

How the lonely, helpless daughter of a quiet house- 
hold feels ! 

In the street I heard a thumping ; and I knew it was 

the stumping 25 

Of the Corporal, our old neighbor, on the wooden leg 

he wore, 
With a knot of women round him, — it was lucky I 

had found him, 
So I followed with the others, and the Corporal 

marched before. 

They were making for the steeple, — the old soldier 
and his people ; 

The pigeons circled round us as we climbed the creak- 
ing stair, 30 

Just across the narrow river — Oh, so close it made 
me shiver ! — 

Stood a fortress on the hill-top that but yesterday was 
bare. 

Not slow our eyes to find it ; well we know who stood 
behind it. 

Though the earthwork hid them from us, and the stub- 
born walls were dumb : 

Here were sister, wife, and mother, looking wild upon 
each other, ^ ^^ 

And their lips were white with terror as they said, 

THE HOUR HAS COME ! 



72 OLIVER WENDELL HOLMES, 

The morning slowly wasted, not a morsel had we 

tasted, 
And our heads were almost splitting with the cannons' 

deafening thrill, 
When a figure tall and stately round the rampart 

strode sedately ; 
It was Prescott, one since told me ; he commanded 

on the hill. 40 

Every woman's heart grew bigger when we saw his 

manly figure, 
With the banyan buckled round it, standing up so 

straight and tall ; 
Like a gentleman of leisure who is strolling out for 

pleasure. 
Through the storm of shells and cannon-shot he 

walked around the wall. 

At eleven the streets were swarming, for the red-coats' 

ranks were forming ; 45 

At noon in marching order they were moving to the 

piers ; 
How the bayonets gleamed and glistened, as we looked 

far down, and listened 
To the trampling and the drum-beat of the belted 

grenadiers ! 

40. Colonel William Prescott, who commanded the detach- 
ment which marched from Cambridge, June 16, 1775, to fortify 
Breed's Hill, was the grandfather of William Hickling Prescott, 
the historian. He was in the field during the entire battle of 
the 17th, in command of the redoubt. 

42. Banyan — a flowered morning gown which Prescott is said 
to have worn during the hot day, a good illustration of the un- 
military appearance of the soldiers engaged. His nonchalant 
walk upon the parapets is also a historic fact, and was for the 
encouragement of the troops within the redoubt. 



GRANDMOTHER'S STORY. 73 

At leiigtli tlie men have started, with a cheer (it 
seemed faint-hearted), 

In their scarlet regimentals, with their knapsacks on 
their backs, 50 

And the reddening, rippling water, as after a sea- 
fight's slaughter, 

Kound the barges gliding onward blushed like blood 
along their tracks. 

So they crossed to the other border, and again they 
formed in order ; 

And the boats came back for soldiers, came for sol- 
diers, soldiers still : 

The time seemed everlasting to us women faint and 
fasting, — 55 

At last they 're moving, marching, marching proudly 
up the hill. 

We can see the bright steel glancing all along the 

lines advancing — 
Now the front rank fires a volley — they have thrown 

away their shot ; 
For behind their earthwork lying, all the balls above 

them flying. 
Our people need not hurry ; so they wait and answer 

not. 60 

Then the Corporal, our old cripple (he would swear 

sometimes and tipple), — 
He had heard the bullets whistle (in the old French 

war) before, — 

62. Many of the officers as well as men on the American side 
had become familiarized with service through the old French 
war, which came to an end in 1763. 



74 OLIVER WENDELL HOLMES. 

Calls out in words of jeering, just as if they all were 
hearing, — 

And his wooden leg thumps fiercely on the dusty bel- 
fry floor : — 

" Oh ! fire away, ye villains, and earn King George's 
shillin's, 65 

But ye '11 waste a ton of powder afore a ' rebel ' falls ; 

You may bang the dirt and welcome, they 're as safe 
as Dan'l Malcolm 

Ten foot beneath the gravestone that you've splin- 
tered with your balls ! " 

In the hush of expectation, in the awe and trepidation 

Of the dread approaching moment, we are well-nigh 
breathless all ; 70 

Though the rotten bars are failing on the rickety bel- 
fry railing. 

We are crowding up against them like the waves 
against a wall. 

67. Dr. Holmes makes the following note to this line : " The 
following epitaph is still to be read on a tall gravestone, stand- 
ing as yet undisturbed among the transplanted monuments of the 
dead in Copp's Hill Burial Ground, one of the three city [Boston] 
cemeteries which have been desecrated and ruined within my 
own remembrance : — 

" Here lies buried in a 
Stone Grave 10 feet deep 
Capt. Daniel Malcolm Mercht 
Who departed this Life 
October 23, 1769, 
Aged 44 years, 
A true son of Liberty, 
A Friend to the Publick, 
An Enemy to oppression. 
And one of the foremost 
In opposing the Revenue Act* 
On America." 



GRANDMOTHER'S STORY. 75 

Just a glimpse (tlie air is clearer), tliey are nearer, 

— nearer, — nearer, 
When a flash — a curling smoke-wreath — then a 

crash — the steeple shakes — 
The deadly truce is ended ; the tempest's shroud is 

rended ; 75 

Like a morning mist it gathered, like a thunder-cloud 

it breaks! 

O the sight our eyes discover as the blue-black smoke 

blows over ! 
The red-coats stretched in windrows as a mower rakes 

his hay ; 
Here a scarlet heap is lying, there a headlong crowd 

is flying 
Like a billow that has broken and is shivered into 

spray. so 

Then we cried, " The troops are routed ! they are 

beat — it can't be doubted ! 
God be thanked, the fight is over ! " — Ah ! the grim 

old soldier's smile ! 
" Tell us, tell us why you look so ? " (we could hardly 

speak we shook so), — 
" Are they beaten ? Are they beaten ? Ake they 

beaten ? " — " Wait a while." 

O the trembling and the terror ! for too soon we saw 

our error : 85 

They are bafiled, not defeated ; we have driven them 

back in vain ; 
And the columns that were scattered, round the colors 

that were tattered. 
Toward the sullen silent fortress turn their belted 

breasts again. 



76 OLIVER WENDELL HOLMES. 

All at once, as we were gazing, lo ! tlie roofs of Charles- 
town blazing ! 

They have fired the harmless village ; in an hour it 
will be down ! 90 

The Lord in Heaven confound them, rain his fire and 
brimstone round them, — 

The robbing, murdering red-coats, that would burn a 
peaceful town ! 

They are marching, stern and solemn; we can see 

each massive column 
As they near the naked earth-mound with the slanting 

walls so steep. 
Have our soldiers got faint-hearted, and in noiseless 

haste departed ? 95 

Are they panic-struck and helpless ? Are they palsied 

or asleep ? 

Now ! the walls they 're almost under ! scarce a rod 

the foes asunder ! 
Not a firelock flashed against them ! up the earthwork 

they will swarm ! 
But the words have scarce been spoken when the 

ominous calm is broken, 
And a bellowing crash has emptied all the vengeance 

of the storm ! 100 

So again, with murderous slaughter, pelted backwards 

to the water. 
Fly Pigot's running heroes and the frightened braves 

of Howe; 



102. The generals on the British side were Howe, Clinton, 
and Pigot. 



GRANDMOTHER'S STORY. 77 

And we shout, " At last they 're done for, it 's their 

barges they have run for : 
They are beaten, beaten, beaten ; and the battle 's over 

now!" 

And we looked, poor timid creatures, on the rough 

old soldier's features, los 

Our lips afraid to question, but he knew what we 

would ask : 
"Not sure," he said; "keep quiet, — once more, I 

guess, they '11 try it — 
Here 's damnation to the cut-throats ! " then he 

handed me his flask. 

Saying, " Gal, you 're looking shaky ; have a drop of 

Old Jamaiky ; 
I 'm afeard there '11 be more trouble afore the job is 

done ; " no 

So I took one scorching swallow ; dreadful faint I felt 

and hollow. 
Standing there from early morning when the firing 

was begun. 

All through those hours of trial I had watched a calm 

clock dial, 
As the hands kept creeping, creeping, — they were 

creeping round to four. 
When the old man said, " They 're forming with their 

bagonets fixed for storming : us 

It 's the death-grip that 's a coming, — they will try 

the works once more." 

"With brazen trumpets blaring, the flames behind them 
glaring. 



78 OLIVER WENDELL HOLMES. 

The deadly wall before them, in close array they 
come ; 

Still onward, upward toiling, like a dragon's fold un- 
coiling, — 

Like the rattlesnake's shrill warning the reverberating 
drum ! 120 

Over heaps all torn and gory — shall I tell the fearful 
story, 

How they surged above the breastwork, as a sea 
breaks over a deck ; 

How, driven, yet scarce defeated, our worn-out men 
retreated, 

With their powder-horns all emptied, like the swim- 
mers from a wreck ? 

It has all been told and painted ; as for me, they say 

I fainted, 125 

And the wooden-legged old Corporal stumped with 

me down the stair : 
When I woke from dreams affrighted the evening 

lamps were lighted, — 
On the floor a youth was lying ; his bleeding breast 

was bare. 

And I heard through all the flurry, " Send for Wae- 

EEN ! hurry ! hurry ! 
Tell him here 's a soldier bleeding, and he '11 come 

and dress his wound ! " 130 

Ah, we knew not till the morrow told its tale of death 

and sorrow, 

129. Dr. Joseph Warren, of equal note at the time as a medi- 
cal man and a patriot. He was a volunteer in the battle, and 
fell there, the most serious loss on the American side. 



GRANDMOTHER'S STORY. 79 

How the starlight found him stiffened on the dark 
and bloody ground. 

Who the youth was, what his name was, where the 

place from which he came was. 
Who had brought him from the battle, and had left 

him at our door. 
He could not speak to tell us ; but 't was one of our 

brave fellows, 135 

As the homespun plainly showed us which the dying 

soldier wore. 

For they all thought he was dying, as they gathered 

round him crying, — 
And they said, " Oh, how they '11 miss him ! " and, 

" What will his mother do ? " 
Then, his eyelids just unclosing like a child's that has 

been dozing. 
He faintly murmured, " Mother ! " and — I saw 

his eyes were blue. 140 

— " Why grandma, how you 're winking ! " — Ah, my 

child, it sets me thinking 
Of a story not like this one. Well, he somehow lived 

along ; 
So we came to know each other, and I nursed him like 

a — mother. 
Till at last he stood before me, tall, and rosy-cheeked, 

and strong. 

And we sometimes walked together in the pleasant 
summer weather ; 145 

— "Please to tell us what his name was?" — Just 

your own, my little dear, 



80 OLIVER WENDELL HOLMES. 

There 's his picture Copley painted : we became so 

well acquainted, 
That, — in short, that 's why I 'm grandma, and you 

children are all here ! 



THE PLOUGHMAN. 

ANNIVERSARY OF THE BERKSHIRE AGRICULTURAL 
SOCIETY, OCTOBER 4, 1849. 

Cleae the brown path, to meet his coulter's gleam ! 
Lo ! on he comes, behind his smoking team. 
With toil's bright dew-drops on his sunburnt brow, 
The lord of earth, the hero of the plough ! 

First in the field before the reddening sun, 5 

Last in the shadows when the day is done. 

Line after line, along the bursting sod, 

Marks the broad acres where his feet have trod ; 

Still where he treads, the stubborn clods divide, 

The smooth, fresh furrow opens deep and wide ; 10 

Matted and dense the tangled turf upheaves. 

Mellow and dark the ridgy cornfield cleaves ; 

Up the steep hillside, where the laboring train 

Slants the long track that scores the level plain ; 

Through the moist valley, clogged with oozing clay, is 

The patient convoy breaks its destined way ; 

At every turn the loosening chains resound, 

147. John Singleton Copley was a portrait painter of cele- 
brity, who was born in America in 1737, and painted many 
famous portraits, which hang in private and public galleries in 
Boston and vicinity chiefly. He lived in England the latter half 
of his life, dying there in 1815. 



THE PLOUGHMAN. 81 

The swinging plouglishare circles glistening round, 

Till the wide field one billowy waste appears, 

And wearied hands unbind the panting steers. 20 

These are the hands whose sturdy labor brings 
The peasant's food, the golden pomp of kings ; 
This is the page whose letters shall be seen 
Changed by the sun to words of living green ; 
This is the scholar whose immortal pen 2s 

Spells the first lesson hunger taught to men ; 
These are the lines which heaven-commanded Toil 
Shows on his deed, — the charter of the soil ! 

O gracious Mother, whose benignant breast 

Wakes us to life, and lulls us all to rest, 3 

How thy sweet features, kind to every clime, ^ 

Mock with their smile the wrinkled front of time ! 

We stain thy flowers,— they blossom o'er the dead ; 

We rend thy bosom, and it gives us bread ; 

O'er the red field that trampling strife has torn, a 

Waves the green plumage of thy tasselled corn ; 

Our maddening conflicts scar thy fairest plain, 

Still thy soft answer is the growing grain. 

Yet, O our Mother, while uncounted charms 

Steal round our hearts in thine embracing arms 

Let not our virtues in thy love decay. 

And thy fond sweetness waste our strength away. 

No ! by these hills, whose banners now displayed 

In blazing cohorts Autumn has arrayed ; 

By yon twin summits, on whose splintery crests 

The tossing hemlocks hold the eagles' nests ; 

By these fair plains the mountain circle screens. 

And feeds with streamlets from its dark ravines, — 



82 OLIVER WENDELL HOLMES. 

True to their home, these faithful arms shall toil 
To crown with peace their own untainted soil ; 
And, true to God, to freedom, to mankind. 
If her chained bandogs Faction shall unbind, 
These stately forms, that bending even now 
Bowed their strong manhood to the humble plough, 
Shall rise erect, the guardians of the land, 
The same stern iron in the same right hand, 
Till o'er the hills the shouts of triumph run. 
The sword has rescued what the ploughshare won ! 



THE CHAMBERED NAUTILUS. 

This is the ship of pearl, which, poets feign, 

Sails the unshadowed main, — 

The venturous bark that flings 
On the sweet summer wind its purpled wings 
In gulfs enchanted, where the Siren sings, s 

And coral reefs lie bare, 
Where the cold sea-maids rise to sun their streaming 
hair. 

Its webs of living gauze no more unfurl ; 

Wrecked is the ship of pearl ! 

And every chambered cell, lo 

Where its dim dreaming life was wont to dwell. 
As the frail tenant shaped his growing shell. 

Before thee lies revealed, — 
Its irised ceiling rent, its sunless crypt unsealed ! 

Year after year beheld the silent toil is 

That spread his lustrous coil ; 
Still, as the spiral grew, 



THE IRON GATE. 83 

He left the past year's dwelling for the new, 
Stole with soft step its shining archway through, 

Built up its idle door, 20 

Stretched in his last-found home, and knew the old no 
more. 

Thanks for the heavenly message brought by thee, 

Child of the wandering sea. 

Cast from her lap, forlorn ! 
From thy dead lips a clearer note is born 25 

Than ever Triton blew from wreathed horn ! 

While on my ear it rings. 
Through the deep caves of thought I hear a voice that 
sings : — 

Build thee more stately mansions, O my soul. 

As the swift seasons roll ! 30 

Leave thy low-vaulted past ! 

Let each new temple, nobler than the last, 

Shut thee from heaven with a dome more vast. 
Till thou at length art free, 

Leaving thine outgrown shell by life's unresting 
sea! 35 

THE IRON GATE. 

READ AT THE BREAKFAST GIVEN IN HONOR OF DR. HOLMES'S 
SEVENTIETH BIRTHDAY BY THE PUBLISHERS OF THE ATLAN- 
TIC MONTHLY, BOSTON, DECEMBER 3, 1879. 

Where is this patriarch you are kindly greeting ? 

Not unfamiliar to my ear his name, 
Nor yet unknown to many a joyous meeting 

In days long vanished, — is he still the same, 



84 OLIVER WENDELL HOLMES. 

Or changed by years, forgotten, and forgetting, 5 

Dull-eared, dim-siglited, slow of speech and thought, 

Still o'er the sad, degenerate present fretting. 
Where all goes wrong, and nothing as it ought ? 

Old age, the graybeard ! Well, indeed, I know him. 
Shrunk, tottering, bent, of aches and ills the prey ; lo 

In sermon, story, fable, picture, poem, 

Oft have I met him from my earliest day : 

In my old ^sop, toiling with his bundle, — 
His load of sticks, — politely asking Death 

Who comes when called for, — would he lug or trun- 
dle 15 
His fagot for him ? — he was scant of breath. 

And sad " Ecclesiastes, or the Preacher," — 
Has he not stamped the image on my soul, 

In that last chapter, where the worn-out Teacher 
Sighs o'er the loosened cord, the broken bowl ? 20 

Yes, long, indeed, I 've known him at a distance, 
And now my lifted door-latch shows him here ; 

I take his shrivelled hand without resistance. 
And find him smiling as his step draws near. 

What though of gilded baubles he bereaves us, 25 

Dear to the heart of youth, to manhood's prime ; 

Think of the calm he brings, the wealth he leaves us. 
The hoarded spoils, the legacies of time ! 

Altars once flaming, still with incense fragrant, 

Passion's uneasy nurslings rocked asleep, so 

Hope's anchor faster, wild desire less vagrant, 
Life's flow less noisy, but the stream how deep ! 



THE IRON GATE. 85 

Still as the silver cord gets worn and slender, 

Its lightened task-work tugs with lessening strain, 

Hands yet more helpful, voices grown more tender, 35 
Soothe with their softened tones the slumberous 
brain. 

Youth longs and manhood strives, but age remembers. 

Sits by the raked-up ashes of the past. 
Spreads its thin hands above the whitening embers 

That warm its creeping life-blood till the last. 40 

Dear to its heart is every loving token 

That comes unbidden ere its pulse grows cold, 

Ere the last lingering ties of life are broken, 
Its labors ended and its story told. 

Ah, while around us rosy youth rejoices, 45 

For us the sorrow-laden breezes sigh. 
And through the chorus of its jocund voices 

Throbs the sharp note of misery's hopeless cry. 

As on the gauzy wings of fancy flying 

From some far orb I track our watery sphere, 50 
Home of the struggling, suffering, doubting, dying. 

The silvered globule seems a glistening tear. 

But Nature lends her mirror of illusion 

To win from saddening scenes our age-dimmed eyes, 
And misty day-dreams blend in sweet confusion 55 

The wintry landscape and the summer skies. 

So when the iron portal shuts behind us, 
And life forgets us in its noise and whirl. 

Visions that shunned the glaring noon-day find us. 
And glimmering starlight shows the gates of pearl, go 



86 OLIVER WENDELL HOLMES. 

— I come not here your morning hour to sadden, 
A limping pilgrim, leaning on his staff, — 

I, who have never deemed it sin to gladden 
This vale of sorrow with a wholesome laugh. 

If word of mine another's gloom has brightened, 65 
Through my dumb lips the heaven-sent message 
came ; 

If hand of mine another's task has lightened, 
It felt the guidance that it dares not claim. 

But, O my gentle sisters, O my brothers, 

These thick-sown snow-flakes hint of toil's release ; 7o 

These feebler pulses bid me leave to others 

The tasks once welcome ; evening asks for peace. 

Time claims his tribute ; silence now is golden ; 

Let me not vex the too long suffering lyre ; 
Though to your love untiring still beholden, 75 

The curfew tells me — cover up the fire. 

And now with grateful smile and accents cheerful. 

And warmer heart than look or word can tell. 
In simplest phrase — these traitorous eyes are tear- 
ful- 
Thanks, Brothers, Sisters — Children — and fare- 
well I 80 



NATHANIEL HAWTHORNE. 



BIOGRAPHICAL SKETCH. 

It was Hawthorne's wont to keep note-books, in which he 
recorded his observations and reflections ; sometimes he 
spoke in them of himself, his plans, and his prospects. He 
began the practice early, and continued it through life ; and 
after his death selections from these note-books were pub- 
lished in six volumes, under the titles : Passages from the 
American Note-Books of Nathaniel Hawthorne, Passages 
froTn the English Note-Books of Nathaniel Hawthorne, 
and Passages from the French and Italian Note-Books of 
Nathaniel Hawthorne. In these books, and in prefaces 
which appear in the front of the volumes containing his col- 
lected stories, one finds many frank expressions of the interest 
which Hawthorne took in his work, and the author appeals 
very ingenuously to the reader, speaking with an almost 
confidential closeness of his stories and sketches. Then the 
Note-Books contain the un wrought material of the books 
which the writer put out in his lifetime. One finds there 
the suggestions of stories, and frequently pages of observa- 
tion and reflection, which were afterward transferred, almost 
as they stood, into the author's works. It is very interesting 
labor to trace Hawthorne's stories and sketches back to 
these records in his note-books, and to compare the finished 
work with the rough material. It seems, also, as if each 
reader was admitted into the privacy of the author's mind. 
That is the first impression, but a closer study reveals two 



88 NATHANIEL HAWTHORNE. 

facts very clearly. One is stated by Hawthorne himself in 
his preface to The Snow-Image a/nd other Twice- Told 
Tales: "I have been especially careful [in my Introduc- 
tions] to make no disclosures respecting myself which the 
most indifferent observer might not have been acquainted 
with, and which I was not perfectly willing that my worst 
enemy should know. ... I have taken facts which relate 
to myself [when telling stories] because they chance to be 
nearest at hand, and likewise are my own property. And, 
as for egotism, a person who has been burrowing, to his 
utmost ability, into the depths of our common nature for the 
purposes of psychological romance — and who pursues his 
researches in that dusky region, as he needs must, as well by 
the tact of sympathy as by the light of observation — will 
smile at incurring such an imputation in virtue of a little 
preliminary talk about his external habits, his abode, his 
casual associates, and other matters entirely upon the sur- 
face. These things hide the man instead of displaying him. 
You must make quite another kind of inquest, and look 
through the whole range of his fictitious characters, good 
and evil, in order to detect any of his essential traits." 

There has rarely been a writer of fiction, then, whose per- 
sonality has been so absolutely separate from that of each 
character created by him, and at the same time has so inti- 
mately penetrated the whole body of his writing. Of no 
one of his characters, male or female, is one ever tempted 
to say, This is Hawthorne, except in the case of Miles Cov- 
erdale in The Blithedale Romance^ where the circumstances 
of the story tempt one into an identification ; yet all Haw- 
thorne's work is stamped emphatically with his mark. 
Hawthorne wrote it, is very simple and easy to say of all 
but the merest trifle in his collected works ; but the world 
has yet to learn who Hawthorne was, and even if he had 
not forbidden a biography of himself, it is scarcely likely 
that any Life could have disclosed more than he has chosen 
himself to reveal. 



BIOGRAPHICAL SKETCH. 89 

The advantage of this is that it leaves the student free to 
concentrate his attention upon the writings rather than on 
the man. Hawthorne, in the passage quoted above, speaks 
of himself as one " who has been burrowing, to his utmost 
ability, into the depths of our common nature for the pur- 
poses of psychological romance ; " and this states, as closely 
as so short a sentence can, the controlling purpose and end 
of the author. The vitality of Hawthorne's characters is 
derived but little from any external description ; it resides 
in the truthfulness with which they respond to some perma- 
nent and controlling operation of the human soul. Looking 
into his own heart, and always, when studying others, in 
search of fundamental rather than occasional motives, he 
proceeded to develop these motives in conduct and life. 
Hence he had a leaning toward the allegory, where human 
figures are merely masks for spiritual activities, and some- 
times he employed the simple allegory, as in The Celestial 
Railroad. More often in his short stories he has a spiritual 
truth to illustrate, and uses the simplest, most direct means, 
taking no pains to conceal his purpose, yet touching his 
characters quietly or playfully with human sensibilities, and 
investing them with just so much real life as answers the 
purpose of the story. This is exquisitely done in The Snoiu- 
Image. The consequence of this "burrowing into the 
depths of our common nature " has been to bring much of 
the darker and concealed life into the movement of his 
stories. The fact of evil is the terrible fact of life, and its 
workings in the human soul had more interest for Hawthorne 
than the obvious physical manifestations. Since his obser- 
vations are less of the men and women whom everybody sees 
and recognizes than of the souls which are hidden from 
most eyes, it is not strange that his stories should often lay 
bare secrets of sin, and that a somewhat dusky light should 
seem to be the atmosphere of much of his work. Now and 
then, especially when dealing with childhood, a warm, sunny 
glow spreads over the pages of his books ; but the reader must 



90 NATHANIEL HAWTHORNE. 

be prepared for the most part to read stories which lie in 
the shadow of life. 

There was one class of subjects which had a peculiar in- 
terest for Hawthorne, and in a measure affected his work. 
He had a strong taste for New England history, and he 
found in the scenes and characters of that history favorable 
material for the representation of spiritual conflict. He was 
himself the most New English of New Englanders, and 
held an extraordinary sympathy with the very soil of his 
section of the country. By this sympathy, rather than by 
any painful research, he was singularly acquainted with the 
historic life of New England. His stories, based directly 
on historic facts, are true to the spirit of the times in some- 
thing more than an archaeological way. One is astonished 
at the ease with which he seized upon characteristic fea- 
tures, and reproduced them in a word or phrase. Merely 
careful and diligent research would never be adequate to 
give the life-likeness of the images in Howe's Masqtiei'ade. 

There is, then, a second fact discovered by a study of 
Hawthorne, that while one finds in the Note-Books, for ex- 
ample, the material out of which stories and sketches seem 
to have been constructed, and while the facts of New Eng- 
land history have been used without exaggeration or distor- 
tion, the result in stories and romances is something far be- 
yond a mere report of what has been seen and read. The 
charm of a vivifying imagination is the crowning charm of 
Hawthorne's stories, and its medium is a graceful and often 
exquisitely apt diction. Hawthorne's sense of touch as a 
writer is very fine. He knows when to be light, and when 
to press heavily ; a very conspicuous quality is what one 
is likely to term quaintness, — a gentle pleasantry which 
seems to spring from the author's attitude toward his own 
work, as if he looked upon that, too, as a part of the spirit- 
ual universe which he was surveying. 

Hawthorne spent much of his life silently, and there are 
touching passages in his note-books regarding his sense of 



BIOGRAPHICAL SKETCH. 91 

loneliness and his wish for recognition from the world. His 
early writings were short stories, sketches, and biographies, 
scattered in magazines and brought together into Tivice- 
Told Tales, in two volumes, published, the first in 1837, 
the second in 1842 ; Mosses froin an Old Manse, in 1846 ; 
The Snow-Image and other Twice- Told Tales, in 1851. 
They had a limited circle of readers. Some recognized his 
genius, but it was not until the publication of The Scarlet 
Letter, in 1850, that Hawthorne's name was fairly before 
the world as a great and original writer of romance. The 
House of the Seven Gables followed in 1851 ; The Blithe- 
dale Romance in 1852. He spent the years 1853-1860 in 
Europe, and the immediate result of his life there is in Our 
Old Home : A Series of English Sketches, published in 
1863, and The Marble Faun, or the Romance of Monte 
Beni, in 1860. For young people he wrote Grandfather's 
Chair, a collection of stories from New England history, 
The Wonder-Booh and Tanglewood Tales, containing 
stories out of classic mythology. There are a few other 
scattered writings which have been collected into volumes 
and published in the complete series of his works. 

Hawthorne was born July 4, 1804, and died May 19, 
1864. 

The student of Hawthorne will find in G. P. Lathrop's 
A Study of Haivthorne, and Henry James, Jr.'s Haivthorne, 
in the series E7iglish Men of Letters, material which will 
assist him. Dr. Holmes published, shortly after Haw- 
thorne's death, a paper of reminiscences which is included 
in Soundings from the Atlantic ; and Longfellow welcomed 
Tivice-Told Tales with a glowing article in the North 
American Revieiv, xlviii. 59, which is reproduced in his 
prose works. The reader will find it an agreeable task to 
discover what the poets, Longfellow, Lowell, Stedman, and 
others, have said of this man of genius. 



THE GREAT STONE FACE. 

One afternoon, when the sun was going down, a 
mother and her little boy sat at the door of their cot- 
tage, talking about the Great Stone Face. They had 
but to lift their eyes, and there it was plainly to be 
seen, though miles away, with the sunshine brighten- 
ing all its features. 

And what was the Great Stone Face? 

Embosomed amongst a family of lofty mountains 
there was a valley so spacious that it contained many 
thousand inhabitants. Some of these good people 
dwelt in log huts, with the black forest all around 
them, on the steep and difficult hillsides. Others had 
their homes in comfortable farm-houses, and culti- 
vated the rich soil on the gentle slopes or level surfaces 
of the valley. Others, again, were congregated into 
populous villages, where some wild, highland rivulet, 
tumbling down from its birthplace in the upper moun- 
tain region, had been caught and tamed by human cun- 
ning and compelled to turn the machinery of cotton- 
factories. The inhabitants of this valley, in short, were 
numerous, and of many modes of life. But all of 
them, grown people and children, had a kind of fa- 
miliarity with the Great Stone Face, although some 
possessed the gift of distinguishing this gi'and natural 
phenomenon more perfectly than many of their neigh- 
bors. 

The Great Stone Face, then, was a work of Nature 



THE GREAT STONE FACE. 93 

in her mood of majestic playfulness, formed on the 
perpendicular side of a mountain by some immense 
rocks, which had been thrown together in such a posi- 
tion as, when viewed at a proper distance, precisely to 
resemble the features of the human countenance. It 
seemed as if an enormous giant, or a Titan, had sculp- 
tured his own likeness on the precipice. There was 
the broad arch of the forehead, a hundred feet in 
height ; the nose, with its long bridge ; and the vast 
lips, which, if they could have spoken, would have 
rolled their thunder accents from one end of the val- 
ley to the other. True it is, that if the spectator 
approached too near he lost the outline of the gigantic 
visage, and could discern only a heap of ponderous 
and gigantic rocks, piled in chaotic ruin one upon 
another. Retracing his steps, however, the wondrous 
features would again be seen ; and the farther he with- 
drew from them, the more like a human face, with all 
its original divinity intact, did they appear ; until, as 
it grew dim in the distance, with the clouds and glori- 
fied vapor of the mountains clustering about it, the 
Great Stone Face seemed positively to be alive. 

It was a happy lot for children to grow up to man- 
hood or womanhood with the Great Stone Face before 
their eyes, for all the features were noble, and the 
expression was at once grand and sweet, as if it were 
the glow of a vast, warm heart, that embraced all 
mankind in its affections, and had room for more. It 
was an education only to look at it. According to the 
belief of many people, the valley owed much of its 
fertility to this benign aspect that was continually 
beaming over it, illuminating the clouds, and infusing 
its tenderness into the sunshine. 

As we began with saying, a mother and her little 



94 NATHANIEL HAWTHORNE. 

boy sat at their cottage-door, gazing at the Great 
Stone Face, and talking about it. The child's name 
was Ernest. 

" Mother," said he, while the Titanic visage smiled 
on him, " I wish that it could speak, for it looks so 
very kindly that its voice must needs be pleasant. If 
I were to see a man with such a face, I should love 
him dearly." 

" If an old prophecy should come to pass," an- 
swered his mother, " we may see a man, some time or 
other, with exactly such a face as that." 

" What prophecy do you mean, dear mother ? " 
eagerly inquired Ernest. "Pray tell me all about 
it!" 

So his mother told him a story that her own mother 
had told to her, when she herself was younger than 
little Ernest ; a story, not of things tkat were past, 
but of what was yet to come ; a story, nevertheless, 
so very old, that even the Indians, who formerly 
inhabited this valley, had heard it from their fore- 
fathers, to whom, as they affirmed, it had been mur- 
mured by the mountain streams, and whispered by 
the wind among the tree-tops. The purport was, 
that, at some future day, a child should be born here- 
abouts, who was destined to become the greatest and 
noblest personage of liis time, and whose countenance, 
in manhood, should bear an exact resemblance to the 
Great Stone Face. Not a few old-fashioned people, and 
young ones likewise, in the ardor of their hopes, still 
cherished an enduring faith in this old prophecy. But 
others, who had seen more of the world, had watched 
and waited till they were weary, and had beheld no 
man with such a face, nor any man that proved to be 
much greater or nobler than his neighbors, concluded 



THE GREAT STONE FACE. 95 

it to be nothing but an idle tale. At all events, the 
great man of the proj^hecy had not yet appeared. 

" O mother, dear mother ! " cried Ernest, clapping 
his hands above his head, " I do hope that I shall live 
to see him ! " 

His mother was an affectionate and thoughtful 
woman, and felt that it was wisest not to discourage 
the generous hopes of her little boy. So she only said 
to him, " Perhaps you may." 

And Ernest never forgot the story that his mother 
told him. It was always in his mind, whenever he 
looked upon the Great Stone Face. He spent his 
childhood in the log cottage where he was born, and 
was dutiful to his mother, and helpful to her in many 
things, assisting her much with his little hands, and 
more with his loving heart. In this manner, from a 
happy yet often pensive child, he grew up to be a 
mild, quiet, unobtrusive boy, and sun-browned with 
labor in the fields, but with more intelligence bright- 
ening his aspect than is seen in many lads who have 
been taught at famous schools. Yet Ernest had had 
no teacher, save only that the Great Stone Face be- 
came one to him. When the toil of the day was over, 
he would gaze at it for hours, until he began to 
imagine that those vast features recognized him, and 
gave him a smile of kindness and encouragement, 
responsive to his own look of veneration. We must 
not take upon us to affirm that this was a mistake, 
although the face may have looked no more kindly at 
Ernest than at all the world besides. But the secret 
was, that the boy's tender and confiding simplicity 
discerned what other people could not see ; and thus 
the love, which was meant for all, became his peculiar 
portion. 



96 NATHANIEL HAWTHORNE. 

About this time there went a rumor throughout the 
valley, that the great man, foretold from ages long 
ago, who was to bear a resemblance to the Great 
Stone Face, had appeared at last. It seems that, 
many years before, a young man had migrated from 
the valley and settled at a distant seaport, where, 
after getting together a little money, he had set up as 
a shopkeeper. His name — but I could never learn 
whether it was his real one, or a nickname that had 
grown out of his habits and success in life — was 
Gathergold. Being shrewd and active, and endowed 
by Providence with that inscrutable faculty which 
develops itself in what the world calls luck, he became 
an exceedingly rich merchant, and owner of a whole 
fleet of bulky-bottomed ships. All the countries of 
the globe appeared to join hands for the mere purpose 
of adding heap after heap to the mountainous accu- 
mulation of this one man's wealth. The cold regions 
of the north, almost within the gloom and shadow of 
the Arctic Circle, sent him their tribute in the shape 
of furs ; hot Africa sifted for him the golden sands of 
her rivers, and gathered up the ivory tusks of her 
great elephants out of the forests ; the East came 
bringing him the rich shawls, and spices, and teas, 
and the effulgence of diamonds, and the gleaming 
purity of large pearls. The ocean, not to be behind- 
hand with the earth, yielded up her mighty whales, 
that Mr. Gathergold might sell their oil, and make a 
profit on it. Be the original commodity what it 
might, it was gold within his grasp. It might be 
said of him, as of Midas in the fable, that whatever 
he touched with his finger immediately glistened, and 
grew yellow, and was changed at once into sterling 
metal, or, which suited him still better, into piles of 



THE GREAT STONE FACE. 97 

coin. And, when Mr. Gathergold had become so very 
rich that it would have taken him a hundred years 
only to count his wealth, he bethought himself of his 
native valley, and resolved to go back thither, and 
end his days where he was born. With this purpose 
in view, he sent a skilful architect to build him such a 
palace as should be fit for a man of his vast wealth to 
live in. 

As I have said above, it had already been rumored 
in the valley that Mr. Gathergold had turned out to 
be the prophetic personage so long and vainly looked 
for, and that his visage was the perfect and undeniable 
similitude of the Great Stone Face. People were the 
more ready to believe that this must needs be the fact, 
when they beheld the splendid edifice that rose, as if by 
enchantment, on the site of his father's old weather- 
beaten farmhouse. The exterior was of marble, so 
dazzlingly white that it seemed as though the whole 
structure might melt away in the sunshine, like those 
humbler ones which Mr. Gathergold, in his young 
play-days, before his fingers were gifted with the touch 
of transmutation, had been accustomed to build of 
snow. It had a richly ornamented portico, supported 
by tall pillars, beneath which was a lofty door, studded 
with silver knobs, and made of a kind of variegated 
wood that had been brought from beyond the sea. 
The windows, from the floor to the ceiling of each 
stately apartment, were composed, respectively, of but 
one enormous pane of glass, so transparently pure that 
it was said to be a finer medium than even the vacant 
atmosphere. Hardly anybody had been permitted to 
see the interior of this palace ; but it was reported, 
and with good semblance of truth, to be far more 
gorgeous than the outside, insomuch that whatever 



98 NATHANIEL HAWTHORNE. 

was iron or brass in other houses was silver or o^olcl in 
this ; and Mr. Gathergold's bedchamber, especially, 
made such a glittering appearance that no ordinary 
man would have been able to close his eyes there. 
But, on the other hand, Mr. Gathergold was now so 
inured to wealth, that perhaps he could not have 
closed his eyes unless where the gleam of it was cer- 
tain to find its way beneath his eyelids. 

In due time, the mansion was finished ; next came 
the upholsterers, with magnificent furniture ; then a 
whole troop of black and white servants, the harbin- 
gers of Mr. Gathergold, who, in his own majestic per- 
son, was expected to arrive at sunset. Our friend 
Ernest, meanwhile, had been deeply stirred by the 
idea that the great man, the noble man, the man of 
prophecy, after so many ages of delay, was at length 
to be made manifest to his native valley. He knew, 
boy as he was, that there were a thousand ways in 
which Mr. Gathergold, with his vast wealth, might 
transform himself into an angel of beneficence, and 
assume a control over human affairs as wide and be- 
nignant as the smile of the Great Stone Face. Full 
of faith and hope, Ernest doubted not that what the 
people said was true, and that now he was to behold 
the living likeness of those wondrous features on the 
mountain-side. While the boy was still gazing up the 
valley, and fancying, as he always did, that the Great 
Stone Face returned his gaze and looked kindly at 
him, the rumbling of wheels was heard, approaching 
swiftly along the winding road. 

" Here he comes ! " cried a group of people who 
were assembled to witness the arrival. "• Here comes 
the great Mr. Gathergold ! " 

A carriage drawn by four horses dashed round the 



THE GREAT STONE FACE. 99 

turn of the road. Within it, thrust partly out of the 
window, appeared the physiognomy of a little old 
man, with a skin as yellow as if his own Midas-hand 
had transmuted it. He had a low forehead, small, 
sharp eyes, puckered about with innumerable wrinkles, 
and very thin lips, which he made still thinner by 
pressing them forcibly together, 

" The very image of the Great Stone Face ! " 
shouted the people. " Sure enough, the old prophecy 
is true; and here we have the great man come, at 
last!". 

And, what greatly perplexed Ernest, they seemed 
actually to believe that here was the likeness which 
they spoke of. By the roadside there chanced to be 
an old beggar-woman and two little beggar-children, 
stragglers from some far-off region, who, as the car- 
riao-e rolled onward, held out their hands and lifted 
up their doleful voices, most piteously beseeching 
charity. A yellow claw — the very same that had 
clawed together so much wealth — poked itself out of 
the coach-window, and dropped some copper coins 
upon the ground ; so that, though the great man's 
name seems to have been Gathergold, he might just 
as suitably have been nicknamed Scattercopper. Still, 
nevertheless, with an earnest shout, and evidently witli 
as much good faith as ever, the people bellowed, — 

" He is the very image of the Great Stone Face ! " 

But Ernest turned sadly from the wrinkled shrewd- 
ness of that sordid visage, and gazed up the valley, 
where, amid a gathering mist, gilded by the last sun- 
beams, he could still distinguish those glorious features 
which had impressed themselves into his soul. Their 
aspect cheered him. What did the benign lips seem 
to say ? 



100 NATHANIEL HAWTHORNE. 

" He will come ! Fear not, Ernest ; the man will 



come 



!" 



The years went on, and Ernest ceased to be a boy. 
He had grown to be a young man now. He attracted 
little notice from the other inhabitants of the valley ; 
for they saw nothing remarkable in his way of life, 
save that, when the labor of the day was over, he still 
loved to go apart and gaze and meditate upon the 
Great Stone Face. According to their idea of the 
matter, it Avas a folly, indeed, but pardonable, inas- 
much as Ernest was industrious, kind, and neigh- 
borly, and neglected no duty for the sake of indulging 
this idle habit. They knew not that the Great Stone 
Face had become a teacher to him, and that the senti- 
ment which was expressed in it would enlarge the 
young man's heart, and fill it with wider and deeper 
sympathies than other hearts. They knew not that 
thence would come a better wisdom than could be 
learned from books, and a better life than could be 
moulded on the defaced example of other human lives. 
Neither did Ernest know that the thoughts and affec- 
tions which came to him so naturally, in the fields 
and at the fireside, and wherever he communed with 
himself, were of a higher tone than those which all 
men shared with him. A simple soul, — simple as 
when his mother first taught him the old prophecy, — 
he beheld the marvellous features beaming adown the 
valley, and still wondered that their human counter- 
part was so long in making his appearance. 

By this time poor Mr. Gathergold was dead and 
buried ; and the oddest part of the matter was, that 
his wealth, which was the body and spirit of his ex- 
istence, had disappeared before his death, leaving 
nothing of him but a living skeleton, covered over 



THE GREAT STONE FACE. 101 

with a wrinkled, yellow skin. Since the melting away 
of his gold, it had been very generally conceded that 
there was no such striking resemblance, after all, be- 
twixt the ignoble features of the ruined merchant and 
that majestic face upon the mountain-side. So the 
people ceased to honor him during his lifetime, and 
quietly consigned him to forgetfulness after his de- 
cease. Once in a while, it is true, his memory was 
brought up in connection with the magnificent palace 
which he had built, and which had long ago been 
turned into a hotel for the accommodation of stran- 
gers, multitudes of whom came every summer to visit 
that famous natural curiosity, the Great Stone Face. 
Thus, Mr. Gathergold being discredited and thrown 
into the shade, the man of prophecy was yet to come. 
It so happened that a native-born son of the val- 
ley, many years before, had enlisted as a soldier, and, 
after a great deal of hard fighting, had now become an 
illustrious commander. Whatever he may be called 
in history, he was known in camps and on the battle- 
field under the nickname of Old Blood-and-Thunder. 
This war-worn veteran, being now infirm with age and 
wounds, and weary of the turmoil of a military life, 
and of the roll of the drum and the clangor of the 
trumpet, that had so long been ringing in his ears, 
had lately signified a purpose of returning to his 
native valley, hoping to find repose where he remem- 
bered to have left it. The inhabitants, his old neigh- 
bors and their grown-up children, were resolved to 
welcome the renowned warrior with a salute of can- 
non and a public dinner ; and all the more enthusias- 
ticalty, it being affirmed that now, at last, the likeness 
of the Great Stone Face had actually appeared. An 
aide-de-camp of Old Blood-and-Thunder, travelling 



102 NATHANIEL HAWTHORNE. 

tlirouo'li the valley, was said to have been struck with 
the resemblance. Moreover the schoolmates and 
early acquaintances of the general were ready to testify, 
on oath, that to the best of their recollection, the 
aforesaid general had been exceedingly like the majes- 
tic image, even when a boy, only that the idea had 
never occurred to them at that period. Great, there- 
fore, was the excitement throughout the valley ; and 
many people, who had never once thought of glancing 
at the Great Stone Face for years before, now spent 
their time in gazing at it, for the sake of knowing 
exactly how General Blood-and-Thunder looked. 

On the day of the great festival, Ernest, with all 
the other people of the valley, left their work, and 
proceeded to the spot where the sylvan banquet was 
prepared. As he approached, the loud voice of the 
Rev. Dr. Battleblast was heard, beseeching a blessing 
on the good things set before them, and on the dis- 
tinguished friend of peace in whose honor they were 
assembled. The tables were arranged in a cleared 
space of the woods, shut in by the surrounding trees, 
except where a vista opened eastward, and afforded 
a distant view of the Great Stone Face. Over the 
general's chair, which was a relic from the home of 
Washington, there was an arch of verdant boughs, 
with the laurel profusely intermixed, and surmounted 
by his country's banner, beneath which he had won 
his victories. Our friend Ernest raised himself on 
his tip-toes, in hopes to get a glimpse of the celebrated 
guest ; but there was a mighty crowd about the tables 
anxious to hear the toasts and speeches, and to catch 
any word that might fall from the general in reply ; 
and a volunteer company, doing duty as a guard, 
pricked ruthlessly with their bayonets at any particu- 



THE GREAT STONE FACE. 103 

larly quiet person among the throng. So Ernest, 
being of an unobtrusive character, was thrust quite 
into the background, where he couki see no more of 
Okl Blood-and-Thunder's physiognomy than if it had 
been still blazing on the battle-field. To console him- 
self, he turned towards the Great Stone Face, which, 
like a faithful and long-remembered friend, looked 
back and smiled upon him through the vista of the 
forest. Meantime, however, he could overhear the 
remarks of various individuals, who were comparing 
the features of the hero with the face on the distant 
mountain-side. 

" 'T is the same face, to a hair ! " cried one man, 
cutting a caper for joy. 

" Wonderfully like, that 's a fact ! " responded an- 
other. 

'' Like ! why, I call it Old Blood-and-Thunder him- 
self in a monstrous looking-glass ! " cried a third. 
" And why not ? He 's the greatest man of this or 
any other age, beyond a doubt." 

And then all three of the speakers gave a great 
shout, which communicated electricity to the crowd, 
and called forth a roar from a thousand voices, that 
went reverberating for miles among the mountains, 
until you might have supposed that the Great Stone 
Face had poured its thunder-breath into the cry. All 
these comments, and this vast enthusiasm, served the 
more to interest our friend ; nor did he think of ques- 
tioning that now, at length, the mountain-visage had 
found its human counterpart. It is true, Ernest had 
imagined that this long-looked-for personage would 
appear in the character of a man of peace, uttering 
wisdom, and doing good, and making people happy. 
But, taking an habitual breadth of view, with all his 



104 NATHANIEL HAWTHORNE. 

simplicity, he contended that Providence should choose 
its own method of blessing mankind, and could con- 
ceive that this great end might be effected even by a 
warrior and a bloody sword, should inscrutable wis- 
dom see fit to order matters so. 

" The general ! the general ! " was now the cry. 
" Hush ! silence ! Old Blood-and-Thunder 's going 
to make a speech." 

Even so ; for, the cloth being removed, the general's 
health had been drunk amid shouts of applause, and 
he now stood upon his feet to thank the company. 
Ernest saw him. There he was, over the shoulders 
of the crowd, from the two glittering epaulets and 
embroidered collar upward, beneath the arch of green 
boughs with intertwined laurel, and the banner droop- 
ing as if to shade his brow ! And there, too, visible 
in the same glance, through the vista of the forest, 
appeared the Great Stone Face ! And was there, in- 
deed, such a resemblance as the crowd had testified ? 
Alas, Ernest could not recognize it. He beheld a 
war-worn and weather-beaten countenance, full of en- 
ergy, and expressive of an iron will ; but the gentle 
wisdom, the deep, broad, tender sympathies, were al- 
together wanting in Old Blood-and- Thunder's visage ; 
and even if the Great Stone Face had assumed his 
look of stern command, the milder traits would still 
have tempered it. 

" This is not the man of prophecy," sighed Ernest 
to himself, as he made his way out of the throng. 
'^ And must the world wait longer yet ? " 

The mists had congregated about the distant moun- 
tain-side, and there were seen the grand and awful 
features of the Great Stone Face, awful but benignant, 
as if a mighty angel were sitting among the hills and 



THE GREAT STONE FACE. 105 

enrobing himself in a eloud-vesture of gold and pur- 
ple. As he looked, Ernest coald hardly believe but 
that a smile beamed over the whole visage, with a 
radiance still brightening, although without motion of 
the lips. It was probably the effect of the western 
sunshine, melting through the thinly diffused vapors 
that had swept between him and the object that he 
gazed at. But — as it always did — the aspect of his 
marvellous friend made Ernest as hopeful as if he 
had never hoped in vain. 

'' Fear not, Ernest," said his heart, even as if the 
Great Face were whispering him, — " fear not, Ernest; 
he will come." 

More years sped swiftly and tranquilly away. 
Ernest still dwelt in his native valley, and was now 
a man of middle age. By imperceptible degrees, he 
had become known among the people. Now, as here- 
tofore, he labored for his bread, and was the same 
simple-hearted man that he had always been. But he 
had thought and felt so much, he had given so many 
of the best hours of his life to unworldly hojjes for 
some great good to mankind, that it seemed as though 
he had been talking with the angels, and had imbibed 
a portion of their wisdom unawares. It was visible 
in the calm and well-considered beneficence of his 
daily life, the quiet stream of which had made a wide 
green margin all along its course. Not a day passed 
by that the world was not the better because this man, 
humble as he was, had lived. He never stepped aside 
from his own path, yet would always reach a blessing 
to his neighbor. Almost involuntarily, too, he had 
become a preacher. The pure and high simplicity of 
his thought, which, as one of its manifestations, took 
shape in the good deeds that dropped silently from his 



106 NATHANIEL HAWTHORNE. 

hand, flowed also forth in speech. He nttered truths 
that wrought upon and moulded the lives of those 
who heard him. His auditors, it may be, never sus- 
pected that Ernest, their own neighbor and familiar 
friend, was more than an ordinary man ; least of all 
did Ernest himself suspect it ; but, inevitably as the 
murmur of a rivulet, came thoughts out of his mouth 
that no other human lijDS had spoken. 

When the people's minds had had a little time to 
cool, they were ready enough to acknowledge their 
mistake in imagining a similarity between General 
Blood-and-Thunder's truculent physiognomy and the 
benign visage on the mountain-side. But now, again, 
there were reports and many paragraphs in the news- 
papers, affirming that the likeness of the Great Stone 
Face had appeared upon the broad shoulders of a cer- 
tain eminent statesman. He, like Mr. Gathergold 
and Old Blood-and-Thunder, was a native of the val- 
ley, but had left it in his early days, and taken uj) the 
trades of law and politics. Instead of the rich man's 
wealth and the warrior's sword, he had but a tongue, 
and it was mightier tlian both together. So wonder- 
fully eloquent was he, that whatever he might choose 
to say, his auditors had no choice but to believe him^ 
wrong looked like right, and right like wrong ; for 
when it pleased him he could make a kind of illu- 
minated fog with his mere breath, and obscure the 
natural daylight with it. His tongue, indeed, was a 
magic instrument ; sometimes it rumbled like the 
thunder ; sometimes it warbled like the sweetest music. 
It was the blast of war, — the song of peace ; and it 
seemed to have a heart in it, when there was no 
such matter. In good truth, he was a wondrous man ; 
and when his tongue had acquired him all other im- 



THE GREAT STONE FACE. 107 

aginable success, — when it had been heard in halls 
of state, and in the courts of princes and potentates, — ■ 
after it had made him known all over the world, even 
as a voice crying- from shore to shore, — it finally per- 
suaded his countiymen to select him for the Presi- 
dency. Before this time, — indeed, as soon as he be- 
gan to grow celebrated, — his admirers had found out 
the resemblance between him and the Great Stone 
Face ; and so much were they struck by it that through- 
out the country this distinguished gentleman was 
known by the name of Old Stony Phiz. The phrase 
was considered as giving a highly favorable aspect to 
his political prospects ; for, as is likewise the case with 
the Popedom, nobody ever becomes President without 
taking a name other than his own. 

While his friends were doing their best to make 
him President, Old Stony Phiz, as he was called, set 
out on a visit to the valley where he was born. Of 
course, he had no other object than to shake hands 
with, his fellow-citizens, and neither thought nor cared 
about any effect which his progress through the country 
might have upon the election. Magnificent prepara- 
tions were made to receive the illustrious statesman ; 
a cavalcade of horsemen set forth to meet him at the 
boundary line of the State, and all the people left their 
business and gathered along the wayside to see him 
pass. Among these was Ernest. Though more than 
once disappointed, as we have seen, he had such a 
hoj^eful and confiding nature, that he was always 
ready to believe in whatever seemed beautiful and 
good. He kept his heart continually open, and thus 
was sure to catch the blessing from on high, when it 
should come. So now again, as buoyantly as ever, he 
went forth to behold the likeness of the Great Stone 
Face. 



108 NATHANIEL HAWTHORNE. 

The cavalcade came prancing along the road, with 
a great clattering of hoofs and a mighty cloud of dust, 
which rose up so dense and high that the visage of 
the mountain-side was completely hidden from Er- 
nest's eyes. All the great men of the neighborhood 
were there on horseback ; militia officers, in uniform ; 
the member of Congress ; the sheriff of the county ; 
the editors of newspapers ; and many a farmer, too, 
had mounted his patient steed, with his Sunday coat 
upon his back. It really was a very brilliant specta- 
cle, esj)ecially as there were numerous banners flaunt- 
ing over the cavalcade, on some of which were gor- 
geous portraits of the illustrious statesman and the 
Great Stone Face, smiling familiarly at one another, 
like two brothers. If the pictures were to be trusted, 
the mutual resemblance, it must be confessed, was 
marvellous. We must not forget to mention that 
there was a band of music, which made the echoes of 
the mountains ring and reverberate with the loud 
triumph of its strains ; so that airy and soul-thrilling 
melodies broke out among all the heights and hollows, 
as if every nook of his native valley had found a voice 
to welcome the distinguished guest. But the grandest 
effect was when the far-off mountain precipice flung 
back the music ; for then the Great Stone Face it- 
self seemed to be swelling the triumphant chorus, in 
acknowledgment that, at length, the man of prophecy 
was come. 

All this while the people were throwing up their 
hats and shouting, with enthusiasm so contagious that 
the heart of Ernest kindled up, and he likewise 
threw up his hat, and shouted, as loudly as the loud- 
est, " Huzza for the great man ! Huzza for Old 
Stony Phiz ! " But as yet he had not seen him. 



THE GREAT STONE FACE. 109 

" Here he is now ! " cried those who stood near 
Ernest. " There ! There ! Look at Old Stony Phiz 
and then at the Old Man of the Mountain, and see if 
they are not as like as two twin-brothers ! " 

In the midst of all this gallant array, came an open 
barouche, drawn by four white horses ; and in the 
barouche, with his massive head uncovered, sat the 
ilhistrious statesman. Old Stony Phiz himself. 

" Confess it," said one of Ernest's neighbors to 
him, " the Great Stone Face has met its match at 
last!" 

Now, it must be owned that, at his first glimpse of 
the countenance which was bowing and smiling from 
the barouche, Ernest did fancy that there was a 
resemblance between it and the old familiar face upon 
the mountain-side. The brow, with its massive depth 
and loftiness, and all the other features, indeed, were 
boldly and strongly hewn, as if in emulation of a more 
than heroic, of a Titanic model. But the sublimity 
and stateliness, the grand expression of a divine sym- 
pathy, that illuminated the mountain visage, and ethe- 
realized its ponderous granite substance into spirit, 
might here be sought in vain. Something had been 
originally left out, or had departed. And therefore 
the marvellously gifted statesman had always a weary 
gloom in the deep caverns of his eyes, as of a child 
that has outgrown its playthings, or a man of mighty 
faculties and little aims, whose life, with all its high 
performances, was vague and empty, because no high 
purpose had endowed it with reality. 

Still Ernest's neighbor was thrusting his elbow into 
his side, and pressing him for an answer. 

" Confess ! confess ! Is not he the very picture of 
your Old Man of the Mountain ? " 



110 NATHANIEL HAWTHORNE. 

" No ! " said Ernest, bluntly, " I see little or no 
likeness." 

"Then so much the worse for the Great Stone 
Face ! " answered his neighbor ; and again he set up a 
shout for Old Stony Phiz. 

But Ernest turned away, melancholy, and almost 
despondent ; for this was the saddest of his disap- 
pointments, to behold a man who might have fulfilled 
the prophecy, and had not willed to do so. Mean- 
time, the cavalcade, the banners, the music, the ba- 
rouches swept past him, with the vociferous crowd in 
the rear, leaving the dust to settle down, and the 
Great Stone Face to be revealed again, with the gran- 
deur that it had worn for untold centuries. 

" Lo, here I am, Ernest ! " the benign lips seemed 
to say. " I have waited longer than thou, and am not 
yet weary. Fear not ; the man will come." 

The years hurried onward, treading in their haste 
on one another's heels. And now they began to bring 
white hairs, and scatter them over the head of Ernest ; 
they made reverend wrinkles across his forehead, and 
furrows in his cheeks. He was an aged man. But 
not in vain had he grown old : more than the white 
hairs on his head were the sage thoughts in his mind ; 
his wrinkles and furrows were inscriptions that Time 
had graved, and in which he had written legends of 
wisdom that had been tested by the tenor of a life. 
And Ernest had ceased to be obscure. Unsought for, 
undesired, had come the fame which so many seek, 
and made him known in the great world, beyond the 
limits of the valley in which he had dwelt so quietly. 
College professors, and even the active men of cities, 
came from far to see and converse with Ernest ; for 
the report had gone abroad that this simple husband- 



THE GREAT STONE FACE. Ill 

man had ideas unlike those of other men, not gained 
from books, but of a higher tone, — a tranquil and 
familiar majesty, as if he had been talking with the 
angels as his daily friends. Whether it were sage, 
statesman, or philanthropist, Ernest received these 
visitors with the gentle sincerity that had character- 
ized him from boyhood, and spoke freely with them of 
whatever came uppermost, or lay deepest in his heart 
or their own. While they talked together his face 
would kindle, unawares, and shine upon them, as with 
a mild evenin^: lio'ht. Pensive with the fulness of 
such discourse, his guests took leave and went their 
way ; and passing up the valley, paused to look at the 
Great Stone Face, imagining that they had seen its 
likeness in a human countenance, but could not 
remember where. 

While Ernest had been growing up and growing 
old, a bountiful Providence had granted a new poet to 
this earth. He, likewise, was a native of the valley, 
but had spent the greater part of his life at a distance 
from that romantic region, pouring out his sweet 
music amid the bustle and din of cities. Often, how- 
ever, did the mountains which had been familiar to 
him in his childhood lift their snowy peaks into the 
clear atmosphere of his poetry. Neither was the 
Great Stone Face forgotten, for the poet had cele- 
brated it in an ode which was grand enough to have 
been uttered by its own majestic lips. The man of 
genius, we may say, had come down from heaven with 
wonderful endowments. If he sang of a mountain, 
the eyes of all mankind beheld a mightier grandeur 
reposing on its breast, or soaring to its summit, than 
had before been seen there. If his theme were a 
lovely lake, a celestial smile had now been thrown over 



112 NATHANIEL HAWTHORNE. 

it, to gleam forever on its surface. If it were the vast 
old sea, even the deep immensity of its dread bosom 
seemed to swell the higher, as if moved by the emo- 
tions of the song. Thus the world assumed another 
and a better aspect from the hour that the poet blessed 
it with his happy eyes. The Creator had bestowed 
him, as the last best touch to his own handiwork. 
Creation v/as not finished till the poet came to inter- 
pret, and so complete it. 

The effect was no less high and beautiful when his 
human brethren were the subject of his verse. The 
man or woman, sordid with the common dust of life, 
who crossed his daily path, and the little child who 
played in it, were glorified if he beheld them in his 
mood of poetic faith. He showed the golden links of 
the great chain that intertwined them with an angelic 
kindred ; he brought out the hidden traits of a celes- 
tial birth that made them worthy of such kin. Some, 
indeed, there were, who thought to show the soundness 
of their judgment by affirming that all the beauty and 
dignity of the natural world existed only in the poet's 
fancy. Let such men speak for themselves, who un- 
doubtedly appear to have been spawned forth by Nature 
with a contemptuous bitterness ; she having plastered 
them up out of her refuse stuff, after all the swine were 
made. As respects all things else, the poet's ideal was 
the truest truth. 

The songs of this poet found their way to Ernest. 
He read them after his customary toil, seated on the 
bench before his cottage door, where for such a length 
of time he had filled his repose with thought, by gazing 
at the Great Stone Face. And now as he read stanzas 
that caused the soul to thrill within him, he lifted his 
eyes to the vast countenance beaming on him so benig- 
nantly. 



THE GREAT STONE FACE. 113 

" O majestic friend," he murmured, addressing the 
Great Stone Face, " is not this man worthy to resem- 
ble thee?" 

The Face seemed to smile, but answered not a word. 

Now it happened that the poet, though he dwelt so 
far away, had not only heard of Ernest, but had med- 
itated much upon his character, until he deemed no- 
thing so desirable as to meet this man, whose untaught 
wisdom walked hand in hand with the noble simplicity 
of his life. One summer morning, therefore, he took 
passage by the railroad, and, in the decline of the 
afternoon, alighted from the cars at no great distance 
from Ernest's cottage. The great hotel, which had 
formerly been the palace of Mr. Gathergold, was close 
at hand, but the poet, with his carpet-bag on his arm, 
inquired at once where Ernest dwelt, and was resolved 
to be accepted as his guest. 

Approaching the door, he there found the good old 
man, holding a volume in his hand, which alternately 
he read, and then, with a finger between the leaves, 
looked lovingly at the Great Stone Face. 

" Good evening," said the poet. " Can you give a 
traveller a night's lodging ? " 

" Willingly," answered Ernest ; and then he added, 
smiling, " methiuks I never saw the Great Stone Face 
look so hospitably at a stranger." 

The poet sat down on the bench beside him, and he 
and Ernest talked together. Often had the poet held 
intercourse with the wittiest and the wisest, but never 
before with a man like Ernest, whose thoughts and 
feelings gushed up with such a natural freedom, and 
who made great truths so familiar by his simple utter- 
ance of them. Angels, as had been so often said, 
seemed to have wrought with him at his labor in the 



114 NATHANIEL HAWTHORNE. 

fields ; angels seemed to have sat with him by the fire- 
side ; and, dwelling with angels as friend with friends, 
he had imbibed the sublimity of their ideas, and im- 
bued it with the sweet and lowly charm of household 
words. So thought the poet. And Ernest, on the 
other hand, was moved and agitated by the living- 
images which the poet flung out of his mind, and 
which peopled all the air about the cottage door with 
shapes of beauty, both gay and pensive. The sym- 
pathies of these two men instructed them with a pro- 
founder sense than either could have attained alone. 
Their minds accorded into one strain, and made delight- 
ful music which neither of them could have claimed 
as all his own, nor distinguished his own share from 
the other's. They led one another, as it were, into a 
high pavilion of their thoughts, so remote, and hitherto 
so dim, that they had never entered it before, and so 
beautiful that they desired to be there always. 

As Ernest listened to the poet, he imagined that the 
Great Stone Face was bending forward to listen too. 
He gazed earnestly into the poet's glowing eyes. 

" Who are you, my strangely gifted guest ? " he said. 

The poet laid his finger on the volume that Ernest 
had been reading. 

"You have read these poems," said he. "You 
know me, then, — for I wrote them." 

Again, and still more earnestly than before, Ernest 
examined the poet's features ; then turned towards the 
Great Stone Face ; then back, with an uncertain as- 
pect, to his guest. But his countenance fell; he 
shook his head, and sighed. 

" Wherefore are you sad ? ^' inquired the poet. 

"Because," replied Ernest, "all through life I 
have awaited the fulfilment of a prophecy ; and, when 



THE GREAT STONE FACE. 115 

I read these poems, I hoped that it might be fulfilled 
ill you." 

" You hoped," answered the poet, faintly smiling, 
" to find in me the likeness of the Great Stone Face. 
And you are disappointed, as formerly with Mr. Gath- 
ergold, and Old Blood-and-Thunder, and Old Stony 
Phiz. Yes, Ernest, it is my doom. You must add 
my name to the illustrious three, and record another 
failure of your hopes. For — in shame and sadness 
do I speak it, Ernest — I am not worthy to be typi- 
fied by yonder benign and majestic image." 

" And why ? " asked Ernest. He pointed to the 
volume. " Are not those thoughts divine ? " 

" They have a strain of the Divinity," replied the 
poet. " You can hear in them the far-off echo of a 
heavenly song. But my life, dear Ernest, has not 
corresponded with my thought. I have had grand 
dreams, but they have been only dreams, because I 
have lived — and that, too, by my own choice — 
among poor and mean realities. Sometimes even — 
shall I dare to say it ? — I lack faith in the grandeur, 
the beauty, and the goodness, which my own works 
are said to have made more evident in nature and in 
human life. Why, then, pure seeker of the good and 
true, shouldst thou hope to find me in yonder image 
of the divine ? " 

The poet spoke sadly, and his eyes were dim with 
tears. So, likewise, were those of Ernest. 

At the hour of sunset, as had long been his frequent 
custom, Ernest was to discourse to an assemblage of 
the neighboring inhabitants in the open air. He and 
the poet, arm in arm, still talking together as they 
went along, proceeded to the spot. It was a small 
nook among the hills, with a gray precipice behind, 



116 NATHANIEL HAWTHORNE. 

the stern front of which was relieved by the pleasant 
foliage of many creeping plants, that made a tapestry 
for the naked rock, by hanging their festoons from 
all its rugged angles. At a small elevation above the 
ground, set in a rich framework of verdure, there 
appeared a niche, spacious enough to admit a hu- 
man figure, with freedom for such gestures as sponta- 
neously accompany earnest thought and genuine emo- 
tion. Into this natural pulpit Ernest ascended, and 
threw a look of familiar kindness around upon his 
audience. They stood, or sat, or reclined upon the 
grass, as seemed good to each, with the departing 
sunshine falling obliquely over them, and mingling 
its subdued cheerfulness with the solemnity of a grove 
of ancient trees, beneath and amid the boughs of 
which the golden rays were constrained to pass. In 
another direction was seen the Great Stone Face, with 
the same cheer, combined with the same solemnity, in 
its benignant aspect. 

Ernest began to s]3eak, giving to the people of what 
was in his heart and mind. His words had power, 
because they accorded with his thoughts ; and his 
thoughts had reality and depth, because they harmo- 
nized with the life which he had always lived. It was 
not mere breath that this preacher uttered ; they were 
the words of life, because a life of good deeds and 
holy love was melted into them. Pearls, pure and rich, 
had been dissolved into this precious draught. The 
poet, as he listened, felt that the being and character 
of Ernest were a nobler strain of poetry than he had 
ever written. His eyes glistening with tears, he gazed 
reverentially at the venerable man, and said within 
himself that never was there an aspect so worthy of a 
prophet and a sage as that mild, sweet, thoughtful 



MY VISIT TO NIAGARA. 117 

countenance, with the gioiy of white hair diffused 
about it. At a distance, but distinctly to be seen, 
high up in the goklen light of the setting sun, ap- 
peared the Great Stone Face, with hoary mists around 
it, like the white hairs around the brow of Ernest. Its 
look of grand beneficence seemed to embrace the world. 

At that moment, in sympathy with a thought which 
he was about to utter, the face of Ernest assumed a 
grandeur of expression, so imbued with benevolence, 
that the poet,i by an irresistible impulse, threw his 
arms aloft, and shouted, — 

"Behold! Behold! Ernest is himself the like- 
ness of the Great Stone Face ! " 

Then all the people looked and saw that what the 
deep-sighted poet said was true. The prophecy was 
fulfilled. But Ernest, having finished what he had 
to say, took the poet's arm, and walked slowly home- 
ward, still hoping that some wiser and better man 
than himself would by and by appear, bearing a re- 
semblance to the Great Stone Face. 



MY VISIT TO NIAGARA. 

Never did a pilgrim approach Niagara with deeper 
enthusiasm than mine. I had lingered away from it, 
and wandered to other scenes, because my treasury of 
anticipated enjoyments, comprising all the wonders of 

1 That the poet should have been the one to discover the re- 
semblance accords with the conception of the poet himself in 
this little apologue. Poetic insight is still separable from integ- 
rity of character, and it was quite possible for this poet to see 
the ideal beauty in another, while conscious of his own defect. 
The humility of Ernest, as the last word of the story, completes 
the certainty of the likeness. 



118 NATHANIEL HAWTHORNE. 

the world, had nothing else so magnificent, and I was 
loath to exchange the pleasures of hope for those of 
memory so soon. At length the day came. The 
stage-coach, with a Frenchman and myself on the 
back seat, had already left Lewiston, and in less than 
an hour would set us down in Manchester. I began 
to listen for the roar of the cataract, and trembled 
with a sensation like dread, as the moment drew nigh, 
when its voice of ages must roll, for the first time, on 
my ear. The French gentleman stretched himself 
from the window, and expressed loud admiration, 
while, by a sudden impulse, I threw myself back and 
closed my eyes. When the scene shut in, I was glad 
to think, tliat for me the whole burst of Niagara was 
yet in futurity. We rolled on, and entered the village 
of Manchester, bordering on the falls. 

I am quite ashamed of myself here. Not that I 
ran like a madman to the falls, and plunged into the 
thickest of the spray, — never stopping to breathe, till 
breathing was impossible ; not that I conmiitted this, 
or any other suitable extravagance. On the contrary, 
I alighted with perfect decency and composure, gave 
my cloak to the black waiter, pointed out my baggage, 
and inquired, not the nearest way to the cataract, but 
about the dinner-hour. The interval was spent in 
arranging my dress. Within the last fifteen minutes, 
my mind had grown strangely benumbed, and my 
spirits apathetic, with a slight depression, not decided 
enough to be termed sadness. My enthusiasm was in 
a deathlike slumber. Without aspiring to immortal- 
ity, as he did, I could have imitated that English trav- 
eller, who turned back from the point where he first 
heard the thunder of Niagara, after crossing the ocean 
to behold it. Many a Western trader, by the by, has 



MY VISIT TO NIAGARA. 119 

performed a similar act o£ heroism with more heroic 
simplicity, deeming it no such wonderful feat to dine 
at the hotel and resume his route to Buffalo or Lewis- 
ton, while the cataract was roaring unseen. 

Such has often been my apathy, when objects, long 
sought, and earnestly desired, were placed within my 
reach. After dinner — at which an unwonted and 
perverse epicurism detained me longer than usual — I 
lighted a cigar and paced the piazza, minutely atten- 
tive to the aspect and business of a very ordinary vil- 
lage. Finally, with reluctant step, and the feeling of 
an intruder, I walked towards Goat Island. At the 
toll-house, there were farther excuses for delaying the 
inevitable moment. My signature was required in a 
huge ledger, containing similar records innumerable, 
many of which I read. The skin of a great stur- 
geon, and other fishes, beasts, and reptiles ; a collec- 
tion of minerals, such as lie in heaps near the falls ; 
some Indian moccasons, and other trifles, made of 
deer-skin and embroidered with beads ; several news- 
papers, from Montreal, New York, and Boston, — all 
attracted me in turn. Out of a number of twisted 
sticks, the manufacture of a Tuscarora Indian, I 
selected one of curled maple, curiously convoluted, 
and adorned with the carved images of a snake and a 
fish. Using this as my pilgrim's staff', I crossed the 
bridge. Above and below me were the rapids, a river 
of impetuous snow, with here and there a dark rock 
amid its whiteness, resisting all the physical fury, as 
any cold spirit did the moral influences of the scene. 
On reaching Goat Island, which separates the two 
great segments of the falls, I chose the right-hand 
path, and followed it to the edge of the American cas- 
cade. There, while the falling sheet was yet invisible, 



120 NATHANIEL HAWTHORNE. 

I saw the vapor that never vanishes, and the Eternal 
Rainbow of Niagara. 

It was an afternoon of glorious sunshine, without a 
cloud, save those of the cataracts. I gained an insu- 
lated rock, and beheld a broad sheet of brilliant and 
unbroken foam, not shooting in a curved line from the 
toj) of the precipice, but falling headlong down from 
height to depth. A narrow stream diverged from the 
main branch, and hurried over the crag hj a channel 
of its own, leaving a little pine-clad island and a 
streak of precipice between itself and the larger sheet. 
Below arose the mist, on which was painted a dazzling 
sunbow with two concentric shadows, — one, almost 
as perfect as the original brightness ; and the other, 
drawn faintly round the broken edge of the cloud. 

Still I had not half seen Niagara. Following the 
verge of the island, the path led me to the Horseshoe, 
where the real, broad St. Lawrence, rushing along on 
a level with its banks, pours its whole breadth over a 
concave line of precipice, and thence pursues its course 
between lofty crags towards Ontario. A sort of 
bridge, two or three feet wide, stretches out along the 
edge of the descending sheet, and hangs upon the ris- 
ing mist, as if that were the foundation of the frail 
structure. Here I stationed myself in the blast of 
wind, which the rushing river bore along with it. The 
bridge was tremulous beneath me, and marked the 
tremor of the solid earth. I looked along the whiten- 
ing rapids, and endeavored to distinguish a mass of 
water far above the falls, to follow it to their verge, 
and go down with it, in fancy, to the abyss of clouds 
and storm. Casting my eyes across the river, and 
every side, I took in the whole scene at a glance, and 
tried to comprehend it in one vast idea. After an 



MY VISIT TO NIAGARA. 121 

hour thus spent, I left the bridge, and by a staircase, 
winding almost interminably round a post, descended 
to the base of the precipice. From that point, my 
path lay over slippery stones, and among great frag- 
ments of the cliff, to the edge of the cataract, where 
the wind at once enveloped me in spray, and perhaps 
dashed the rainbow round me. Were my long desires 
fulfilled? And had I seen Niagara? 

Oh that I had never heard of Niagara till I beheld 
it I Blessed were the wanderers of old, who heard its 
deep roar, sounding through the woods, as the sum- 
mons to an unknown wonder, and approached its awful 
brink, in all the freshness of native feeling. Had its 
own mysterious voice been the first to warn me of its 
existence, then, indeed, I might have knelt down and 
worshipped. But I had come thither, haunted with a 
vision of foam and fury, and dizzy cliffs, and an ocean 
tumbling down out of the sky, — a scene, in short, 
which nature had too much good taste and calm sim- 
plicity to realize. My mind had struggled to adapt 
these false conceptions to the reality, and finding 
the effort vain, a wretched sense of disappointment 
weighed me down. I climbed the precipice, and 
threw myself on the earth, feeling that I was un- 
worthy to look at the Great Falls, and careless about 
beholding them again. . . . 

All that night, as there has been and will be for 
ages past and to come, a rushing sound was heard, as 
if a great tempest were sweeping through the air. It 
mingled with my dreams, and made them full of storm 
and whirlwind. Whenever I awoke, and heard this 
dread sound in the air, and the windows rattling as 
with a mighty blast, I could not rest again, till look- 
ing forth, I saw how bright the stars were, and that 



122 NATHANIEL HAWTHORNE. 

every leaf in the garden was motionless. Never was a 
summer night more calm to the eye, nor a gale of au- 
tumn louder to the ear. The rushing sound proceeds 
from the rapids, and the rattling of the casements is 
but an effect of the vibration of the whole house, 
shaken by the jar of the cataract. The noise of the 
rapids draws the attention from the true voice of 
Niagara, which is a dull, muffled thunder, resounding 
between the cliffs. I spent a wakeful hour at mid- 
night, in distinguishing its reverberations, and rejoiced 
to find that my former awe and enthusiasm were reviv- 
ing. 

Gradually, and after much contemplation, I came to 
know, by my own feelings, that Niagara is indeed a 
wonder of the world, and not the less wonderful, be- 
cause time and thought must be employed in compre- 
hending it. Casting aside all preconceived notions, 
and preparation to be dire-struck or delighted, the 
beholder must stand beside it in the simplicity of his 
heart, suffering the miglity scene to work its own im- 
pression. Night after night, I dreamed of it, and was 
gladdened every morning by the consciousness of a 
growing capacity to enjoy it. Yet I will not pretend 
to the all-absorbing enthusiasm of some more fortunate 
spectators, nor deny that very trifling causes would 
draw my eyes and thoughts from the cataract. 

The last day that I was to spend at Niagara, before 
my departure for the Far West, I sat upon the Table 
Rock. This celebrated station did not now, as of old, 
project fifty feet beyond the line of the precipice, but 
was shattered by the fall of an immense fragment, 
which lay distant on the shore below. Still, on the 
utmost verge of the rock, with my feet hanging over 
it, I felt as if suspended in the open air. Never be- 



MY VISIT TO NIAGARA. 123 

fore had my mind been in such perfect unison with 
the scene. There were intervals, when I was con- 
scious of nothing but the great river, rolling calmly 
into the abyss, rather descending than precipitating 
itself, a,nd acquiring tenfold majesty from its unhur- 
ried motion. It came like the march of Destiny. It 
was not taken by surprise, but seemed to have antic- 
ipated, in all its course through the broad lakes, that 
it must j^our their collected waters down this height. 
The perfect foam of the river, after its descent, and 
the ever-varying shapes of mist, rising up, to become 
clouds in the sky, would be the very picture of con- 
fusion, were it merely transient, like the rage of a 
tempest. But when the beholder has stood awhile, 
and perceives no lull in the storm, and considers that 
the vapor and the foam are as everlasting as the rocks 
which produce them, all this turmoil assumes a sort of 
calmness. It soothes, while it awes the mind. 

Leaning over the cliff, I saw the guide conducting 
two adventurers behind the falls. It was pleasant, 
from that high seat in the sunshine, to observe them 
struggling against the eternal storm of the lower re- 
gions, with heads bent down, now faltering, now press- 
ing forward, and finally swallowed up in their victory. 
After their disappearance, a blast rushed out with an 
old hat, which it had swept from one of their heads. 
The rock, to which they were directing their unseen 
course, is marked, at a fearful distance on the exterior 
of the sheet, by a jet of foam. The attempt to reach 
it appears both poetical and perilous to a looker-on, 
but may be accomplished without much more diffi- 
culty or hazard than in stemming a violent north- 
easter. In a few moments, forth came the children 
of the mist. Dripping and breathless, they crept 



124 NATHANIEL HAWTHORNE. 

along the base of the cliff, ascended to the guide's cot- 
tage, and received, I presume, a certificate of their 
achievement, with three verses of sublime poetry on 
the back. 

My contemplations were often interrupted by stran- 
gers who came down from Forsyth's to take their first 
view of the falls. A short, ruddy, middle-aged gen- 
tleman, fresh from Old England, peeped over the rock, 
and evinced his approbation by a broad grin. His 
spouse, a very robust lady, afforded a sweet example 
of maternal solicitude, being so intent on the safety of 
her little boy that she did not even glance at Niagara. 
As for the child, he gave himself wholly to the enjoy- 
ment of a stick of candy. Another traveller, a native 
American, and no rare character among us, produced 
a volume of Captain Hall's tour, and labored earnestly 
to adjust Niagara to the captain's description, depart- 
ing, at last, without one new idea or sensation of his 
own. The next comer was provided, not with a 
printed book, but with a blank sheet of foolscap, from 
top to bottom of which, by means of an ever-pointed 
pencil, the cataract was made to thunder. In a little 
talk which we had together, he awarded his approba- 
tion to the general view, but censured the position of 
Goat Island, observing that it should have been thrown 
farther to the right, so as to widen the American falls, 
and contract those of the Horseshoe. Next appeared 
two traders of Michigan, who declared, that, upon the 
whole, the sight was worth looking at ; there certainly 
was an immense water-power here ; but that, after all, 
they would go twice as far to see the noble stone-works 
of Lockport, where the Grand Canal is locked down a 
descent of sixty feet. They were succeeded by a young- 
fellow, in a homespun cotton dress, with a staff in his 



MY VISIT TO NIAGARA. 125 

hand, and a pack over his shouhlers. He advanced 
close to the edge of the rock, where his attention, at 
first wavering among the different components of the 
scene, finally became fixed in the angle of the Horse- 
shoe falls, which is, indeed, the central point of inter- 
est. His whole soul seemed to go forth and be trans- 
ported thither, till the staff slipped from his relaxed 
grasp, and falling down — down — down — struck 
upon the fragment of the Table Rock. 

In this manner I spent some hours, watching the 
varied impression, made by the cataract, on those who 
disturbed me, and returning to unwearied contempla- 
tion, when left alone. At length my time came to de» 
part. There is a grassy footpath through the woods, 
along the summit of the bank, to a point whence a 
causeway, hewn in the side of the precipice, goes wind- 
ing down to the Ferry, about half a mile below the 
Table Rock. The sun was near setting, when I 
emerged from the shadow of the trees, and began the 
descent. The indirectness of my downward road con- 
tinually changed the point of view, and showed me, in 
rich and repeated succession, now, the whitening rap- 
ids and majestic leap of the main river, which ap- 
peared more deeply massive as the light departed ; 
now, the lovelier picture, yet still sublime, of Goat 
Island, with its rocks and grove, and the lesser falls, 
tumbling over the right bank of the St. Lawrence, like 
a tributary stream ; now, the long vista of the river, 
as it eddied and whirled between the cliffs, to pass 
through Ontario toward the sea, and everywhere to 
be wondered at, for this one unrivalled scene. The 
golden sunshine tinged the sheet of the American cas- 
cade, and painted on its heaving spray the broken 
semicircle of a rainbow, heaven's own beauty crown- 



126 NATHANIEL HAWTHORNE. 

ing earth's sublimity. My steps were slow, and I 
paused long at every turn of the descent, as one lin- 
gers and pauses who discerns a brighter and brighten- 
ing excellence in what he must soon behold no more. 
The solitude of the old wilderness now reigned over 
the whole vicinity of the falls. My enjoyment be- 
came the more rapturous, because no poet shared it, 
nor wretch devoid of poetry profaned it ; but the spot 
so famous through the world was all my own ! 



JOHN GEEENLEAF WHITTIER. 



BIOGRAPHICAL SKETCH. 

John Greenleaf Whittier, of Quaker birth in Puri- 
tan surroundings, was born at the homestead near Haver- 
hill, Massachusetts, December 17, 1807. Until his eigh- 
teenth year he lived at home, working upon the farm and in 
the little shoemaker's shop which nearly every farm then had 
as a resource in the otherwise idle hours of winter. The 
manual, homely labor upon which he was employed was in 
part the foundation of that deep interest which the poet 
never has ceased to take in the toil and plain fortunes of the 
people. Throughout his poetry runs this golden thread of 
sympathy with honorable labor and enforced poverty, and 
many poems are directly inspired by it. While at work 
with his father he sent poems to the Haverhill Gazette, and 
that he was not in subjection to his work is very evident by 
the fact that he translated it and similar occupations into 
Songs of Labor. He had two years' academic training, and 
in 1829 became editor in Boston of the American Manu- 
facturer, a paper published in the interest of the tariff. In 
1831 he published his Legends of New England, prose 
sketches in a department of literature which has always 
had strong claims upon his interest. No American writer, 
unless Irving be excepted, has done so much to throw a 
graceful veil of poetry and legend over the country of his 
daily life. Essex County, in Massachusetts, and the beaches 
lying between Newburyport and Portsmouth blossom with 
flowers of Whittier's planting. He has made rare use of 



128 JOHN GREENLEAF WHITTIER. 

the homely stories which he had heard in his childhood, and 
learned afterward from familiar intercourse with country 
people, and he has himself used invention delicately and in 
harmony with the spirit of the New England coast. Al- 
though of a body of men who in earlier days had been perse- 
cuted by the Puritans of New England, his generous mind 
has not failed to detect all the good that was in the stern 
creed and life of the persecutors, and to bring it forward into 
the light of his poetry. 

In 1836 he published Mogg Megone, a poem which stood 
first in the collected edition of his poems issued in 1857, and 
was admitted there with some reluctance, apparently, by the 
author. In that and the Bridal of Tennacook he draws his 
material from the relation held between the Indians and the 
settlers. His sympathy was always with the persecuted and 
oppressed, and while historically he found an object of pity 
and self-reproach in the Indian, his profoundest compassion 
and most stirring indignation were called out by African slav- 
ery. From the earliest he was upon the side of the abolition 
party. Year after year poems fell from his pen in which 
with all the eloquence of his nature he sought to enlist his 
countrymen upon the side of emancipation and freedom. It 
is not too much to say that in the slow development of pub- 
lic sentiment Whittier's steady song was one of the most 
powerful advocates that the slave had, all the more power- 
ful that it was free from malignity or unjust accusation. 

Whittier's poems have been issued in a number of small 
volumes, and collected into single larger volumes. Besides 
those already indicated, there are a number which owe their 
origin to his tender regard for domestic life and the simple 
experience of the men and women about him. Of these 
Snoio-Bound is the most memorable. Then his fondness for 
a story has led him to use the ballad form in many cases, 
and Mabel Martin is one of a number, in which the narra- 
tive is blended with a fine and strong charity. The catholic 
mind of this writer and his instinct for discovering the pure 



BIOGRAPHICAL SKETCH. 129 

moral in human action are disclosed by a number of poems, 
drawn from a wide range of historical fact, dealing with a 
great variety of religious faiths and circumstances of life, 
but always pointing to some sweet and strong truth of the 
divine life. Of such are The Brother of Mercy, The Gift of 
Tritemms, The Two Rabbis, and others. Whittier's Prose 
Works are comprised in three volumes, and consist mainly 
of his contributions to journals and of Leaves from Mar- 
garet Smith's Journal, a fictitious diary of a visitor to New 
England in 1678. 



SNOW-BOUND. 

A WINTER IDYL. 

" As the Spirits of Darkness be stronger in the dark, so good 
Spirits which be Angels of Light are augmented not only by the 
Divine light of the Sun, but also by our common Wood fire : 
and as the Celestial Fire drives away dark spirits, so also this 
our Fire of Wood doth the same." — CoR. Agrippa, Occult 
Philosophy^ Book I. ch. v. 



♦' Announced by all the trumpets of the sky, 
Arrives the snow ; and, driving o'er the fields, 
Seema nowhere to alight ; the whited air 
Hides hills and woods, the river and the heaven, 
And veils the farm-house at the garden's end. 
The sled and traveller stopped, the courier's feet 
Delayed, all friends shut out, the housemates sit 
Aroimd the radiant fireplace, inclosed 
In a tumultuous privacy of storm." 

Emeeson, The Snow-Storm. 



The sun that brief December day- 
Rose cheerless over hills of gray, 
And, darkly circled, gave at noon 
A sadder light than waning moon. 
Slow tracing down the thickening sky 
Its mute and ominous prophecy, 
A portent seeming less than threat. 
It sank from sight before it set. 
A chill no coat, however stout. 
Of homespun stuff could quite shut out, 



SNOW-BOUND. 131 

A hard, dull bitterness of cold, 

That checked, mid-vein, the circling race 
Of life-blood in the sharj^ened face, 

The coming of the snow-storm told. 

The wind blew east ; we heard the roar is 

Of Ocean on his wintry shore. 

And felt the strong pulse throbbing there 

Beat with low rhythm our inland air. 

Meanwhile we did our nightly chores, — 

Brought in the wood from out of doors, 20 

Littered the stalls, and from the mows 

Raked down the herd's-grass for the cows : 

Heard the horse whinnying for his corn; 

And, sharply clashing horn on horn. 

Impatient down the stanchion rows 25 

The cattle shake their walnut bows ; 

While, peering from his early perch 

Upon the scaffold's pole of birch, 

The cock his crested helmet bent 

And down his querulous challenge sent. 30 

Unwarmed by any sunset light 

The gray day darkened into night, 

A night made hoary with the swarm 

And whirl-dance of the blinding storm, 

As zigzag wavering to and fro 35 

Crossed and recrossed the winged snow : 

And ere the early bedtime came 

The white drift piled the window-frame, 

And through the glass the clothes-line posts 

Looked in like tall and sheeted ghosts. 4o 

So all night long the storm roared on : 
The morning broke without a sun ; 



132 JOHN GREENLEAF WHITTIER. 

In tiny spherule traced with lines 

Of Nature's geometric signs, 

In starry flake and pellicle « 

All day the hoary meteor fell ; 

And, when the second morning shone, 

We looked upon a world unknown. 

On nothing we could call our own. 

Around the glistening wonder bent so 

The blue walls of the firmament, 

No cloud above, no earth below, — 

A universe of sky and snow ! 

The old familiar sights of ours 

Took marvellous shapes ; strange domes and towers 

Kose up where sty or corn-crib stood, se 

Or garden-wall, or belt of wood ; 

A smooth white mound the brush-pile showed, 

A fenceless drift what once was road ; 

The bridle-post an old man sat 6o 

With loose-flung coat and high cocked hat ; 

The well-curb had a Chinese roof ; 

And even the long sweep, high aloof, 

In its slant splendor, seemed to tell 

Of Pisa's leaning miracle. 65 

A prompt, decisive man, no breath 
Our father wasted ; " Boys, a path ! " 

65. The Leaning Tower of Pisa, in Italy, which inclines from 
the perpendicular a little more than six feet in eighty, is a cam- 
panile, or bell-tower, built of white marble, very beautiful, but 
so famous for its singular deflection from perpendicularity as to 
be known almost wholly as a curiosity. Opinions differ as to 
the leaning being the result of accident or design, but the better 
judgment makes it an effect of the character of the soil on 
which it is built. The Cathedral to which it belongs has suf- 
fered so much from a similar cause that there is not a vertical 
line in it. 



SNOW-BOUND. 133 

"Well pleased, (for when did farmer boy 

Count such a summons less than joy ?) 

Our buskins on our feet we drew ; 70 

With mittened hands, and caps drawn low 
To guard our necks and ears from snow, 

We cut the solid whiteness through. 

And, where the drift was deepest, made 

A tunnel walled and overlaid 75 

With dazzling crystal : we had read 

Of rare Aladdin's wondrous cave. 

And to our own his name we gave. 

With many a wish the luck were ours 

To test his lamp's supernal powers. so 

We reached the barn with merry din, 

And roused the prisoned brutes within. 

The old horse thrust his long head out. 

And grave with wonder gazed about ; 

The cock his lusty greeting said, 85 

And forth his speckled harem led ; 

The oxen lashed their tails, and hooked, 

And mild reproach of hunger looked ; 

The horned patriarch of the sheep. 

Like Egypt's Amun roused from sleep, 90 

Shook his sage head with gesture mute, 

And emphasized with stamp of foot. 

All day the gusty north-wind bore 

The loosening drift its breath before ; 

Low circling round its southern zone, 95 

The sun through dazzling snow-mist shone, 

No church-bell lent its Christian tone 

90. Amun, or Ammon, was an Egyptian being, representing 
an attribute of Deity under the form of a ram. 



134 JOHN GREENLEAF WHITTIER. 

To the savage air, no social smoke 

Curled over woods of snow-hung oak. 

A solitude made more intense loo 

By dreary-voiced elements, 

The shrieking of the mindless wind, 

The moaning tree-boughs swaying blind, 

And on the glass the unmeaning beat 

Of ghostly finger-tips of sleet. los 

Beyond the circle of our hearth 

No welcome sound of toil or mirth 

Unbound the spell, and testified 

Of human life and thought outside. 

We minded that the sharpest ear no 

The buried brooklet could not hear, 

The music of whose liquid lip 

Had been to us companionship. 

And, in our lonely life, had grown 

To have an almost human tone. us 

As night drew on, and, from the crest 

Of wooded knolls that ridged the west. 

The sun, a snow-blown traveller, sank 

From sight beneath the smothering bank, 

W^e piled with care our nightly stack 120 

Of wood against the chimney-back, — 

The oaken log, green, huge, and thick. 

And on its top the stout back-stick ; 

The knott}^ forestick laid apart. 

And filled between with curious art 125 

The ragged brush ; then, hovering near, 

We watched the first red blaze appear. 

Heard the sharp crackle, caught the gleam 

On whitewashed wall and sagging beam. 

Until the old, rude-furnished room 130 



SNOW-BOUND. 135 

Burst, flower-like, into rosy bloom ; 

While radiant with a mimic flame 

Outside the sparkling drift became, 

And through the bare-boughed lilac-tree 

Our own warm hearth seemed blazing free. 135 

The crane and pendent trammels showed, 

The Turk's heads on the andirons glowed ; 

While childish fancy, prompt to tell 

The meaning of the miracle. 

Whispered the old rhyme : " Under the tree i4o 

When fire outdoors hiums merrily^ 

There the witches are making tea^ 

The moon above the eastern wood 

Shone at its full ; the hill-range stood 

Transfigured in the silver flood, 145 

Its blown snows flashing cold and keen, 

Dead white, save where some sharp ravine 

Took shadow, or the sombre green 

Of hemlocks turned to pitchy black 

Against the whiteness of their back. iso 

For such a world and such a night 

Most fitting that unwarming light. 

Which only seemed where'er it fell 

To make the coldness visible. 

Shut in from all the world without, 155 

We sat the clean-winged hearth about, 

Content to let the north-wind roar 

In battle rage at pane and door. 

While the red logs before us beat 

The frost-line back with tropic heat ; I60 

And ever, when a louder blast 

Shook beam and rafter as it passed, 



136 JOHN GREENLEAF WHITTIER. 

The merrier up its roaring draught 

The great throat of the chimney laughed, 

The house-dog on his paws outspread les 

Laid to the fire his drowsy head, 

The cat's dark silhouette on the wall 

A couchant tiger's seemed to fall ; 

And, for the winter fireside meet. 

Between the andirons' straddling feet, no 

The mug of cider simmered slow, 

The apples sputtered in a row, 

And, close at hand, the basket stood 

With nuts from brown October's wood. 

What matter how the night behaved ? 175 

What matter how the north-wind raved ? 
Blow high, blow low, not all its snow 
Could quench our hearth-fire's ruddy glow. 
O Time and Change ! — with hair as gray 
As was my sire's that winter day, iso 

How strange it seems, with so much gone 
Of life and love, to still live on ! 
Ah, brother ! only I and thou 
Are left of all that circle now, — 
The dear home faces whereupon i85 

That fitful firelight paled and shone. • 

Henceforward, listen as we will. 
The voices of that hearth are still ; 
Look where we may, the wide earth o'er, 
Those lighted faces smile no more. 190 

We tread the paths their feet have worn. 
We sit beneath their orchard trees. 
We hear, like them, the hum of bees 
And rustle of the bladed corn ; 
We turn the pages that they read, 195 



SNOW-BOUND. 137 

Their written words we linger o'er, 
But in the sun they cast no shade, 
No voice is heard, no sign is made. 

No step is on the conscious floor ! 
Yet Love will dream and Faith will trust 200 

(Since He who knows our need is just) 
That somehow, somewhere, meet we must. 
Alas for him who never sees 
The stars shine through his cypress-trees ! 
Who, hopeless, lays his dead away, 205 

Nor looks to see the breaking day 
Across the mournful marbles play ! 
Who hath not learned, in hours of faith. 

The truth to flesh and sense unknown, 
That Life is ever lord of Death, 210 

And Love can never lose its own ! 

We sped the time with stories old. 

Wrought puzzles out, and riddles told. 

Or stammered from our school-book lore 

" The chief of Gambia's golden shore." 215 

How often since, when all the land 

Was clay in Slavery's shaping hand, 

As if a trumpet called, I 've heard 

Dame Mercy Warren's rousing word : 

" Does not the voice of reason cry^ 220 

Claim the first right which Nature gave^ 
From the red scourge of bondage fly ^ 

Nor deign to live a burdened slave ! " 
Our father rode again his ride 

219. Mrs. Mercy Warren was the wife of James Warren, a 
prominent patriot at the beginning of the Revohition. Her poe- 
try was read in an age that had in America little to read under 
that name ; her society was sought by the best men. 



138 JOHN GREENLEAF WHIT TIER, 

On Mempliremagog's wooded side ; 225 

Sat down again to moose and samp 

In trapper's hut and Indian camp ; 

Lived o'er the old idyllic ease 

Beneath St. Francois' hemlock-trees; 

Again for him the moonlight shone 230 

On Norman cap and bodiced zone ; 

Again he heard the violin play 

Which led the village dance awaj^, 

And mingled in its merry whirl 

The grandam and the laughing girl. 235 

Or, nearer home, our steps he led 

Where Salisbury's level marshes spread 

Mile-wide as flies the laden bee ; 

Where merry mowers, hale and strong, 

Swept, scythe on scythe, their swaths along 240 

The low green prairies of the sea. 

We shared the fishing off Boar's Head, 
And round the rocky Isles of Shoals 
The hake-broil on the driftwood coals ; 

The chowder on the sand-beach made, 245 

Dipped by the hungry, steaming hot. 

With spoons of clam-shell from the pot. 

We heard the tales of witchcraft old. 

And dream and sign and marvel told 

To sleepy listeners as they lay 250 

Stretched idly on the salted hay, 

Adrift along the winding shores. 

When favoring breezes deigned to blow 
The square sail of the gundelow, 

jAnd idle lay the useless oars. 255 

Our mother, while she turned her wheel 
Or run the new-knit stocking heel. 



SNOW-BOUND. 139 

Told how the Indian hordes came down 

At midnight on Cochecho town, 

And how her own great-uncle bore 260 

His cruel scalp-mark to fourscore. 

Kecalling, in her fitting phrase, 

So rich and picturesque and free 

(The common unrhymed poetry 
Of simple life and country ways), 265 

The story of her early days, — 
She made us welcome to her home ; 
Old hearths grew wide to give us room ; 
We stole with her a frightened look 
At the gray wizard's conjuring-book, 270 

The fame whereof went far and wide 
Through all the simple country-side ; 
We heard the hawks at twilight play, 
The boat-horn on Piscataqua, 

The loon's weird laughter far away ; 275 

We fished her little trout-brook, knew 
What flowers in wood and meadow grew, 
What sunny hillsides autumn-brown 
She climbed to shake the ripe nuts down, 
Saw where in sheltered cove and bay 28O 

The duck's black squadron anchored lay, 
And heard the wild geese calling loud 
Beneath the gray November cloud. 
Then, haply, with a look more grave. 
And soberer tone, some tale she gave 285 

From painful Sewel's ancient tome, 

259. Dover in New Hampshire. 

286. William Sewel was the historian of the Quakers. Charles 
Lamb seemed to have as good an opinion of the book as Whit- 
tier. In his essay A Quakers' Meeting, in Essays of Elia, he says : 
« Reader, if you are not acquainted with it, I would recommend 



140 JOHN GREENLEAF WHITTIER. 

Beloved in every Quaker home, 

Of faith fire-winged by martyrdom, 

Or Chalkley's Journal, old and quaint, — 

Gentlest of skippers, rare sea-saint ! — 290 

Who, when the dreary calms prevailed, 

And water-butt and bread-cask failed, 

And cruel, hungry eyes pursued 

His portly presence, mad for food. 

With dark hints muttered under breath 295 

Of casting lots for life or death, 

to you, above all church-narratives, to read Sewel's History of the 
Quakers. ... It is far more edifying and affecting than any- 
thing you will read of Wesley or his colleagues." 

289. Thomas Chalkley was an Englishman of Quaker parent- 
age, born in 1675, who travelled extensively as a preacher, and 
finally made his home in Philadelphia. He died in 1749 ; his 
Journal was first published in 1747. His own narrative of the 
incident which the poet relates is as follows : " To stop their mur- 
muring, I told them they should not need to cast lots, which was 
usual in such cases, which of us should die first, for I would freely 
offer up my life to do them good. One said, * God bless you ! 
I will not eat any of you.' Another said, ' He would rather die 
before he would eat any of me ; ' and so said several, I can 
truly say, on that occasion, at that time, my life was not dear to 
me, and that I was serious and ingenuous in my proposition : and 
as I was leaning over the side of the vessel, thoughtfully consid- 
ering my proposal to the company, and looking in my mind to 
Him that made me, a very large dolphin came up towards the 
top or surface of the water, and looked me in the face ; and I 
called the people to put a hook into the sea, and take him, for 
here is one come to redeem me (I said to them). And they put 
a hook into the sea, and the fish readily took it, and they caught 
him. He was longer than myself. I think he was about six 
feet long, and the largest that ever I saw. This plainly showed 
us that we ought not to distrust the providence of the Almighty. 
The people were quieted by this act of Providence, and mur- 
mured no more. We caught enough to eat plentifully of, till we 
got into the capes of Delaware." 



SNO W-BOUND. 141 

Offered, if Heaven withlielcl supplies, 

To be himself the sacrifice. 

Then, suddenly, as if to save 

The good man from his living grave, 300 

A ripple on the water grew, 

A school of porpoise flashed in view. 

"Take, eat," he said, "and be content; 

These fishes in my stead are sent 

By Him who gave the tangled ram 305 

To spare the child of Abraham." 

Our uncle, innocent of books, 

Was rich in lore of fields and brooks. 

The ancient teachers never dumb 

Of Nature's unhoused lyceum. 310 

In moons and tides and weather wise. 

He read the clouds as prophecies, 

And foul or fair could well divine, 

By many an occult hint and sign. 

Holding the cunning-warded keys 315 

To all the woodcraft mysteries ; 

Himself to Nature's heart so near 

That all her voices in his ear 

Of beast or bird had meanings clear, 

Like Apollonius of old, 320 

Who knew the tales the sparrows told, 

Or Hermes, who interpreted 

310. The measure requires the accent ly'ceum, but in stricter 
use the accent is lyce'um. 

320. A philosopher born in the first century of the Christian 
era, of whom many strange stories were told, especially regard- 
ing his converse with birds and animals. 

322. Hermes Trismegistns, a celebrated Egyptian priest and 
philosopher, to whom was attributed the revival of geometry, 
arithmetic, and art among the Egyptians. He was little later 
than Apollonius. 



142 JOHN GREENLEAF WHITTIER. 

What the sage cranes of Nilus said ; 

A simple, guileless, childlike man. 

Content to live where life began ; 325 

Strong only on his native grounds, 

The little world of sights and sounds 

Whose girdle was the parish bounds, 

Whereof his fondly partial pride 

The common features magnified, 330 

As Surrey hills to mountains grew 

In White of Selborne's loving view, — 

He told how teal and loon he shot. 

And how the eagle's eggs he got. 

The feats on pond and river done, 335 

The prodigies of rod and gun ; 

Till, warming with the tales he told. 

Forgotten was the outside cold. 

The bitter wind unheeded blew. 

From ripening corn the pigeons flew, 340 

The partridge drummed i' the wood, the mink 

Went fishing down the river-brink. 

In fields with bean or clover gay, 

The woodchuck, like a hermit gray. 

Peered from the doorway of his cell ; 345 

The muskrat plied the mason's trade. 
And tier by tier his mud-walls laid ; 
And from the shagbark overhead 

The grizzled squirrel dropped his shell. 

Next, the dear aunt, whose smile of cheer 350 

And voice in dreams I see and hear, — 

332. Gilbert White, of Selborue, England, was a clergyman 
who wrote the Natural History of Selborne, a minute, affection- 
ate, and charming description of what could be seen, as it were, 
from his own doorstep. The accuracy of his observation and the 
delightfulness of his manner have kept the book a classic. 



SNOW-BOUND. 143 

The sweetest woman ever Fate 

Perverse denied a household mate, 

Who, lonely, homeless, not the less 

Found peace in love's unselfishness, 355 

And welcome whereso'er she went, 

A calm and gracious element. 

Whose presence seemed the sweet income 

And womanly atmosphere of home, — 

Called up her girlhood memories, m 

The huskings and the apple-bees. 

The sleigh-rides and the summer sails. 

Weaving through all the poor details 

And homespun warp of circumstance 

A golden woof-thread of romance. 365 

For well she kej3t her genial mood 

And simple faith of maidenhood ; 

Before her still a cloud-land lay. 

The mirage loomed across her way ; 

The morning dew, that dried so soon 370 

With others, glistened at her noon ; 

Through years of toil and soil and care, 

From glossy tress to thin gray hair, 

All unprofaned she held apart 

The virgin fancies of the heart. 375 

Be shame to him of woman born 

Who hath for such but thought of scorn. 

There, too, our elder sister plied 

Her evening task the stand beside ; 

A full, rich nature, free to trust, 380 

Truthful and almost sternly just. 

Impulsive, earnest, prompt to act, 

And make her generous thought a fact, 

Keeping with many a light disguise 



144 JOHN GREENLEAF WHITTIER. 

The secret of self-sacrifice. 885 

heart sore-tried ! thou hast the best 
That Heaven itself could give thee, — rest, 
Kest from all bitter thoughts and things ! 

How many a poor one's blessing went 
With thee beneath the low green tent 390 

Whose curtain never outward swings ! 

As one who held herself a part 
Of all she saw, and let her heart 

Against the household bosom lean. 
Upon the motley-braided mat 395 

Our youngest and our dearest sat, 
Lifting her large, sweet, asking eyes. 

Now bathed within the fadeless green 
And holy peace of Paradise. 
Oh, looking from some heavenly hill, 400 

Or from the shade of saintly palms. 

Or silver reach of river calms. 
Do those large eyes behold me still? 
With me one little year ago : — 
The chill weight of the winter snow 405 

For months upon her grave has lain ; 
And now, when summer south-winds blow 

And brier and harebell bloom again, 

1 tread the pleasant paths we trod, 

I see the violet-sprinkled sod, 410 

Whereon she leaned, too frail and weak 

The hillside flowers she loved to seek, 

Yet following me where'er I went 

With dark eyes full of love's content. 

The birds are glad ; the brier-rose fills 415 

398. jTA' unfading green would be harsher, but more correct, 
since the termination less is added to nouns and not to verbs. 



SNOW-BOUND. 145 

The air with sweetness ; all the hills 

Stretch green to June's unclouded sky ; 

But still I wait with ear and eye 

For something gone which should be nigh, 

A loss in all familiar things, 420 

In flower that blooms, and bird that sings. 

And yet, dear heart ! remembering thee, 

Am I not richer than of old ? 
Safe in thy immortality. 

What change can reach the wealth I hold ? 425 

What chance can mar the pearl and gold 
Thy love hath left in trust with me ? 
And while in life's late afternoon, 

Where cool and long the shadows grow, 
I walk to meet the night that soon 430 

Shall shape and shadow overflow, 
I cannot feel that thou art far. 
Since near at need the angels are ; 
And when the sunset gates unbar, 

Shall I not see thee waiting stand, 435 

And, white against the evening star. 

The welcome of thy beckoning hand ? 

Brisk wielder of the birch and rule, 

The master of the district school 

Held at the fire his favored place ; 440 

Its warm glow lit a laughing face 

Fresh-hued and fair, where scarce appeared 

The uncertain prophecy of beard. 

He teased the mitten-blinded cat, 

Played cross-pins on my uncle's hat, 445 

Sang songs, and told us what befalls 

In classic Dartmouth's college haUs. 

Born the wild Northern hills among, 



146 JOHN GREENLEAF WHITTIER. 

From whence his yeoman father wrung 

By patient toil subsistence scant, 450 

Not competence and yet not want, 

He early gained the power to pay 

His cheerful, self-reliant way ; 

Could doff at ease his scholar's gown 

To peddle wares from town to town ; 455 

Or through the long vacation's reach 

In lonely lowland districts teach, 

Where all the droll experience found 

At stranger hearths in boarding round. 

The moonlit skater's keen delight, 46o 

The sleigh-drive through the frosty night, 

The rustic party, with its rough 

Accompaniment of blind-man's-buff. 

And whirling plate, and forfeits paid, 

His winter task a pastune made. 465 

Happy the snow-locked homes wherein 

He tuned his merry violin. 

Or played the athlete in the barn. 

Or held the good dame's winding yarn, 

Or mirth-provoking versions told 470 

Of classic legends rare and old. 

Wherein the scenes of Greece and Rome 

Had all the commonplace of home. 

And little seemed at best the odds 

'Twixt Yankee pedlers and old gods ; 475 

Where Pindus-born Arachthus took 

The guise of any grist-mill brook. 

And dread Olympus at his will 

476. Pindus is the mountain chain which, running from north 
to south, nearly bisects Greece. Five rivers take their rise from 
the central peak, the Aous, the Arachthus, the Haliacmon, the 
Peneus, and the Achelous. 



SNOW-BOUND. 147 

Became a huckleberry hill. 

A careless boy that night he seemed ; 480 

But at his desk he had the look 
And air of one who wisely schemed, 

And hostage from the future took 

In trained thought and lore of book. 
Large-brained, clear-eyed, — of such as he 435 

Shall Freedom's young apostles be, 
Who, following in War's bloody trail. 
Shall every lingering wrong assail ; 
All chains from limb and spirit strike, 
Uplift the black and white alike ; 490 

Scatter before their swift advance 
The darkness and the ignorance. 
The pride, the lust, the squalid sloth. 
Which nurtured Treason's monstrous growth, 
Made murder pastime, and the hell 495 

Of prison-torture possible ; 
The cruel lie of caste refute. 
Old forms remould, and substitute 
For Slavery's lash the freeman's will. 
For blind routine, wise-handed skill ; soo 

A school-house plant on every hill. 
Stretching in radiate nerve-lines thence 
The quick wires of intelligence ; 
Till North and South together brought 
Shall own the same electric thought, 505 

In peace a common flag salute. 

And, side by side in labor's free 

And unresentful rivalry, 
Harvest the fields wherein they fought. 

Another guest that winter night ao 

Flashed back from lustrous eyes the light. 



148 JOHN GREENLEAF WHITTIER. 

Unmarked by time, and yet not young, 

The honeyed music of her tongue 

And words of meekness scarcely told 

A nature passionate and bold, sis 

Strong, self-concentred, spurning guide, 

Its milder features dwarfed beside 

Her unbent will's majestic pride. 

She sat among us, at the best, 

A not unf eared, half -welcome guest, 520 

Rebuking with her cultured phrase 

Our homeliness of words and ways. 

A certain pard-like, treacherous grace 

Swayed the lithe limbs and dropped the lash, 
Lent the white teeth their dazzling flash ; 525 

And under low brows, black with night, 
Rayed out at times a dangerous light ; 

The sharp heat-lightnings of her face 

Presaging ill to him whom Fate 

Condemned to share her love or hate. 530 

A woman tropical, intense 
In thought and act, in soul and sense. 
She blended in a like degree 
The vixen and the devotee. 
Revealing with each freak or feint sas 

The temper of Petruchio's Kate, 
The raptures of Siena's saint. 

Her tapering hand and rounded wrist 

Had facile power to form a fist ; 

The warm, dark languish of her eyes 540 

Was never safe from wrath's surprise. 

Brows saintly calm and lips devout 

636. See Shakespeare's comedy of the Taming of the Shrew. 
537. St. Catherine of Siena, who is represented as having 
wonderful visions. She made a vow of silence for three years. 



SNOW-BOUND. 149 

Knew every change of scowl and pout ; 

And the sweet voice had notes more high 

And .shrill for social battle-cry. 545 

Since then what old cathedral town 

Has missed her pilgrim staff and gown, 

What convent-gate has held its lock 

Against the challenge of her knock ! 

Through Smyrna's plague-hushed thoroughfares, 550 

Up sea-set Malta's rocky stairs. 

Gray olive slo]3es of hills that hem 

Thy tombs and shrines, Jerusalem, 

Or startling on her desert throne 

The crazy Queen of Lebanon 555 

With claims fantastic as her own, 

Her tireless feet have held their way ; 

And still, unrestful, bowed, and gray, 

She watches under Eastern skies. 

With hope each day renewed and fresh, 56o 

The Lord's quick coming in the flesh, 

Whereof she dreams and prophesies ! 



555. An interesting account of Lady Hester Stanhope, an 
English gentlewoman who led a singular life on Mount Lebanon 
in Syria, will be found in Kinglake's Eothen, chapter viii. 

562. This not wifeared, half-welcome guest was Miss Harriet 
Livermore, daughter of Judge Liverniore of New Hampshire. 
She was a woman of fine powers, but wayward, wild, and enthu- 
siastic. She went on an independent mission to the Western 
Indians, whom she, in common with some others, believed to be 
remnants of the lost tribes of Israel. At the time of this narra- 
tive she was about twenty-eight years old, but much of her life 
afterward was spent in the Orient. She was at one time the 
companion and friend of Lady Hester Stanhope, but finally 
quarrelled with her about the use of the holy horses kept in the 
stable in waiting for the Lord's ride to Jerusalem at the second 
advent. 



150 JOHN GREENLEAF WHITTIER. 

Where'er her troubled path may be, 

The Lord's sweet j)ity with her go ! 
The outward wayward life we see, 565 

The hidden sj)rings we may not know. 
Nor is it given us to discern 

What threads the fatal sisters spun, 

Through what ancestral years has run 
The sorrow with the woman born, 570 

What forged her cruel chain of moods. 
What set her feet in solitudes, 

And held the love within her mute. 
What mingled madness in the blood, 

A lifelong discord and annoy, 575 

Water of tears with oil of joy. 
And hid within the folded bud 

Perversities of flower and fruit. 
It is not ours to separate 

The tangled skein of will and fate, 580 

To show what metes and bounds should stand 
Upon the soul's debatable land. 
And between choice and Providence 
Divide the circle of events ; 

But He who knows our frame is just, sss 

Merciful and compassionate. 
And full of sweet assurances 
And hope for all the language is. 

That He remembereth we are dust ! 

At last the great logs, crumbling low, 590 

Sent out a dull and duller glow. 

The bull's-eye watch that hung in view, 

Ticking its weary circuit through, 

Pointed with mutely-warning sign 

Its black hand to the hour of nine. 595 



SNOW-BOUND. 151 

That sign the pleasant circle broke : 

My uncle ceased his pipe to smoke, 

Knocked from its bowl the refuse gray, 

And laid it tenderly away, 

Then roused himself to safely cover eoo 

The dull red brand with ashes over. 

And while, with care, our mother laid 

The work aside, her steps she stayed 

One moment, seeking to express 

Her grateful sense of happiness eos 

For food and shelter, warmth and health, 

And love's contentment more than wealth, 

With simple wishes (not the weak. 

Vain prayers which no fulfilment seek. 

But such as warm the generous heart, eio 

O'er-prompt to do with Heaven its part) 

That none might lack, that bitter night, 

For bread and clothing, warmth and light. 

Within our beds awhile we heard 

The wind that round the gables roared, eis 

With now and then a ruder shock. 

Which made our very bedsteads rock. 

We heard the loosened clapboards tost. 

The board-nails snapping in the frost ; 

And on us, through the unplastered wall, 620 

Felt the light sifted snow-flakes fall. 

But sleep stole on, as sleep will do 

When hearts are light and life is new ; 

Faint and more faint the murmurs grew. 

Till in the summer-land of dreams 625 

They softened to the sound of streams, 

Low stir of leaves, and dip of oars. 

And lapsing waves on quiet shores. 



152 JOHN GREENLEAF WHITTIER. 

Next morn we wakened with the shout 

Of merry voices high and clear ; 630 

And saw the teamsters drawing near 

To break the drifted highways out. 

Down the long hillside treading slow 

We saw the half-buried oxen go, 

Shaking the snow from heads uptost, 635 

Their straining nostrils white with frost. 

Before our door the straggling train 

Drew up, an added team to gain. 

The elders threshed their hands a-cold, 

Passed, with the cider-mug, their jokes 64o 

From lip to lip ; the younger folks 

Down the loose snow-banks, wrestling, rolled, 

Then toiled again the cavalcade 

O'er windy hill, through clogged ravine. 

And woodland paths that wound between 645 

Low drooping pine-boughs winter-weighed. 

From every barn a team afoot, 

At every house a new recruit. 

Where, drawn by Nature's subtlest law, 

Haply the watchful young men saw 650 

Sweet doorway pictures of the curls 

And curious eyes of merry girls. 

Lifting their hands in mock defence 

Against the snow-balls' compliments, 

And reading in each missive tost 655 

The charm with Eden never lost. 

We heard once more the sleigh-bells' sound ; 

And, following where the teamsters led, 
The wise old Doctor went his round, 

659. The wise old Doctor was Dr. Weld of Haverhill, an able 
man, who died at the age of ninety-six. 



SNOW-BOUND. 163 

Just pausing at our door to say eeo 

In the brief autocratic way 

Of one wlio, prompt at Duty's call, 

Was free to urge her claim on all, 

That some poor neighbor sick abed 
At night our mother's aid would need. 665 

For, one in generous thought and deed. 

What mattered in the sufferer's sight 

The Quaker matron's inward light, 
The Doctor's mail of Calvin's creed ? 
All hearts confess the saints elect 670 

Who, twain in faith, in love agree, 
And melt not in an acid sect 

The Christian pearl of charity ! 

So days went on : a week had passed 

Since the great world was heard from last. 675 

The Almanac we studied o'er, 

Read and reread our little store 

Of books and pamphlets, scarce a score ; 

One harmless novel, mostly hid 

From younger eyes, a book forbid, 680 

And poetry, (or good or bad, 

A single book was all we had,) 

Where Ellwood's meek, drab-skirted Muse, 

A stranger to the heathen Nine, 

Sang, with a somewhat nasal whine, 685 

683. Thomas Ellwood, one of the Society of Friends, a con- 
temporary and friend of Milton, and the suggestor of Paradise 
Regained, wrote an epic poem in five books, called Davideis, the 
life of King David of Israel. He wrote the book, we are told, 
for his own diversion, so it was not necessary that others should 
be diverted by it. Ellwood's autobiography, a quaint and de- 
lightful book, is included in Howells's series of Choice Autobio- 
graphies. 



154 JOHN GREEN LEAF WHIT TIER. 

The wars of David and the Jews. 

At last the floundering carrier bore 

The village paper to our door. 

Lo ! broadening outward as we read, 

To warmer zones the horizon spread ; 690 

In panoramic length unrolled 

We saw the marvels that it told. 

Before us passed the painted Creeks, 

And daft McGregor on his raids 

In Costa Rica's everglades. 695 

And up Taygetus winding slow 
Rode Ypsilanti's Mainote Greeks, 

A Turk's head at each saddle bow ! 
Welcome to us its week old news, 
Its corner for the rustic Muse, 700 

Its monthly gauge of snow and rain, 
Its record, mingling in a breath 
The wedding knell and dirge of death ; 
Jest, anecdote, and love-lorn tale, 
The latest culprit sent to jail ; 705 

Its hue and cry of stolen and lost. 
Its vendue sales and goods at cost, 

And traffic calling loud for gain. 
We felt the stir of hall and street. 
The pulse of life that round us beat ; 710 

The chill embargo of the snow 

693. Referring to the removal of the Creek Indians from 
Georgia to beyond the Mississippi. 

694. In 1822 Sir Gregor McGregor, a Scotchman, began an 
ineffectual attempt to establish a colony in Costa Rica. 

697. Taygetus is a mountain on the Gulf of Messenia in 
Greece, and near by is the district of Maina, noted for its rob- 
bers and pirates. It was from these mountaineers that Ypsilanti, 
a Greek patriot, drew his cavalry in the struggle with Turkey 
which resulted in the independence of Greece. 



SNOW-BOUND. 155 

W^as melted in the genial glow ; 
V\^ide swung again our ice-locked door, 
And all the world was ours once more ! 

Clasp, Angel of the backward look 715 

And folded wings of ashen gray 

And voice of echoes far away. 
The brazen covers of thy book ; 
The weird palimpsest old and vast, 
Wherein thou hid'st the spectral past ; 720 

Where, closely mingling, pale and glow 
The characters of joy and woe ; 
The monographs of outlived years, 
Or smile-illumed or dim with tears, 
Green hills of life that slope to death, 725 

And haunts of home, whose vistaed trees 

Shade off to mournful cypresses 
With the white amaranths underneath. 
Even while I look, I can but heed 

The restless sands' incessant fall, 730 

Importunate hours that hours succeed. 
Each clamorous with its own sharp need, 

And duty keeping pace with all. 
Shut down and clasp the heavy lids ; 
I hear again the voice that bids 735 

The dreamer leave his dream midway 

For larger hopes and graver fears : 

Life greatens in these later years. 
The century's aloe flowers to-day ! 

Yet, haply, in some lull of life, 740 

Some Truce of God which breaks its strife, 

741. The name is drawn from a historic compact in 1040, 
when the Church forbade barons to make any attack on each 



156 JOHN GREENLEAF WHIT TIER, 

The worldling's eyes shall gather dew, 

Dreaming in throngful city ways 
Of winter joys his boyhood knew ; 
And dear and early friends — the few 745 

Who yet remain — shall pause to view 

These Flemish pictures of old days ; 
Sit with me by the homestead hearth, 
And stretch the hands of memory forth 

To warm them at the wood-fire's blaze ! 750 

And thanks untraced to lips unknown 
Shall greet me like the odors blown 
From unseen meadows newly mown, 
Or lilies floating in some pond. 
Wood-fringed, the wayside gaze beyond; 755 

The traveller owns the grateful sense 
Of sweetness near, he knows not whence. 
And, pausing, takes with forehead bare 
The benediction of the air. 



THE SHIP-BUILDERS. 

The sky is ruddy in the east, 

The earth is gray below. 
And, spectral in the river-mist. 

The ship's white timbers show. 
Then let the sounds of measured stroke 5 

And grating saw begin ; 

other between sunset on Wednesday and sunrise on the following 
Monday, or upon any ecclesiastical fast or feast day. It also 
provided that no man was to molest a laborer working in the 
fields, or to lay hands on any implement of husbandry, on pain 
of excommunication. 

747. The Flemish school of painting was chiefly occupied with 
homely interiors. 



THE SHIP-BUILDERS. 157 

The broad-axe to the gnarled oak, 
The mallet to the pin ! 

Hark ! roars the bellows, blast on blast, 

The sooty smithy jars, lo 

And fire-sparks, rising far and fast. 

Are fading with the stars. 
All day for us the smith shall stand 

Beside that flashing forge ; 
All day for us his heavy hand is 

The groaning anvil scourge. 

From far-off hills, the panting team 

For us is toiling near ; 
For us the raftsmen down the stream 

Their island barges steer. 20 

Rings out for us the axe-man's stroke 

In forests old and still ; 
For us the century-circled oak 

Falls crashing down his hill. 

Up ! up ! in nobler toil than ours 25 

No craftsmen bear a part : 
We make of Nature's giant powers 

The slaves of human Art. 
Lay rib to rib and beam to beam. 

And drive the treenails free ; 30 

Nor faithless joint nor yawning seam 

Shall tempt the searching sea ! 

Where'er the keel of our good ship 
The sea's rough field shall plough ; 

Where'er her tossing spars shall drip 35 

With salt-spray caught below ; 



158 JOHN GREENLEAF WHIT TIER. 

That ship must heed her master's beck, 

Her helm obey his hand, 
And seamen tread her reeling deck 

As if they trod the land. 40 

Her oaken ribs the vulture-beak 

Of Northern ice may peel ; 
The sunken rock and coral peak 

May grate along her keel ; 
And know we well the painted shell 45 

We give to wind and wave, 
Must float, the sailor's citadel, 

Or sink, the sailor's grave ! 

Ho ! strike away the bars and blocks. 

And set the good ship free ! 50 

Why lingers on these dusty rocks 

The young bride of the sea ? 
Look ! how she moves adown the grooves. 

In graceful beauty now ! 
How lowly on the breast she loves 55 

Sinks down her virgin prow ! 

God bless her ! wheresoe'er the breeze 

Her snowy wing shall fan, 
Aside the frozen Hebrides, 

Or sultry Hindostan ! eo 

Where'er, in mart or on the main. 

With peaceful flag unfurled, 
She helps to wind the silken chain 

Of commerce round the world ! 

Speed on the ship ! But let her bear 65 

No merchandise of sin. 



THE WORSHIP OF NATURE. 169 

No groaning cargo of despair 

Her roomy hold within ; 
No Lethean drug for Eastern lands, 

Nor poison-draught for ours ; 70 

But honest fruits of toiling hands 

And Nature's sun and showers. 

Be hers the Prairie's golden grain, 

The Desert's golden sand, 
The clustered fruits of sunny Spain, 75 

The spice of Morning-land ! 
Her pathway on the open main 

May blessings follow free, 
And glad hearts welcome back again 

Her white sails from the sea ! so 

THE WORSHIP OF NATURE. 

The harp at Nature's advent strung 

Has never ceased to play ; 
The song the stars of morning sung 

Has never died away. 

And prayer is made, and praise is given, s 

By all things near and far ; 
The ocean looketh up to heaven, 

And mirrors every star. 

Its waves are kneeling on the strand. 

As kneels the human knee, 10 

Their white locks bowing to the sand, 
The priesthood of the sea ! 

They pour their glittering treasures forth, 
Their gifts of pearl they bring. 



160 JOHN GREENLEAF WHITTIER. 

And all the listening hills of earth 
Take up the song they sing. 

The green earth sends her incense up 
From many a mountain shrine ; 

From folded leaf and dewy cup 
She pours her sacred wine. 

The mists above the morning rills 
Rise white as wings of prayer ; 

The altar-curtains of the hills 
Are sunset's purple air. 

The winds with hymns of praise are loud, 
Or low with sobs of pain, — 

The thunder-organ of the cloud, 
The dropping tears of rain. 

With drooping head and branches crossed 

The twilight forest grieves. 
Or speaks with tongues of Pentecost 

From all its sunlit leaves. 

The blue sky is the temple's arch, 

Its transept earth and air, 
The music of its starry march 

The chorus of a prayer. 

So Nature keeps the reverent frame 
With which her years began, 

And all her signs and voices shame 
The prayerless heart of man. 



HENRY DAVID THOREAU. 



BIOGRAPHICAL SKETCH. 

There died at Concord, Massachusetts, in the year 1862, 
a man of forty-five who, if one were to take his word for it, 
need never have gone out of the little village of Concord to 
see all that was worth seeing in the world. Lowell, in his 
My Garden Acquaintance^ reminds the reader of Gilbert 
White, who, in his Natural Hlstorij of Selbome, gave mi- 
nute details of a lively world found within the borders of a 
little English parish. Alphonse Karr, a French writer, has 
written a book which contracts the limit still further in 
A Jourjiey round my Garden^ but neither of these writers 
so completely isolated himself from the outside world as 
did Thoreau, who had a collegiate education at Harvard, 
made short journeys to Cape Cod, Maine, and Canada, 
acted for a little while as tutor in a family on Staten Island, 
but spent the best part of his life as a looker-on in Concord, 
and during two years of the time lived a hermit on the 
shores of Walden Pond. He made his living, as the phrase 
goes, by the occupation of a land surveyor, but he followed 
the profession only when it suited his convenience. He did 
not marry ; he never went to church ; he never voted ; he 
refused to pay taxes ; he sought no society ; he declined 
companions when they were in his way, and when he had 
anything to say in public, went about from door to door and 
invited people to come to a hall to hear him deliver his 
word. 

That he had something to say to the world at large is 



162 HENRY DAVID THOREAU. 

pretty evident from the books which he has left, and it is 
intimated that the unpublished records of his observation 
and reflection are more extensive. Thus far his published 
writings are contained in ten volumes. The first in appear- 
ance was A Week on the Concord and Merrimack Rivers. 
It was published in 1849 and built upon the adventures of 
himself and brother ten years before, when, in a boat of 
their own construction, they had made their way from Con- 
cord down the Concord River to the Merrimack, up that to 
its source, and back to the starting point. It will readily 
be seen that such an excursion would not yield a bookful of 
observation, and though Thoreau notes in it many trivial 
incidents, a great part of the contents is in the reflections 
which he makes from day to day. He comes to the little 
river with its sparse border of population and meagre his- 
tory, and insists upon measuring antiquity and fame by it. 
All of his reading he tests by the measure of this stream, 
and undertakes to show that the terms, big and little, are 
very much misapplied, and that here on this miniature scale 
one may read all that is worth knowing in life. His voy- 
age is treated with the gravity which one might use in re- 
cording a journey to find the sources of the Nile. 

Between the date of the journey and the publication of 
the book, Thoreau was engaged upon an experiment still 
more illustrative of his creed of individuality. In 1845 he 
built a hut in the woods by Walden Pond, and for two 
years lived a self-contained life there. It was not alto- 
gether a lonely life. He was within easy walking distance 
of Concord village, and the novelty of his housekeeping at- 
tracted many visitors, while his friends who valued his con- 
versation sought him out in his hermitage. Besides and 
beyond this Thoreau had a genius for intercourse with 
humbler companions. There have been few instances in 
history of such perfect understanding as existed between 
him and the lower orders of creation. It has been said of 
him : " Every fact which occurs in the bed [of the Concord 



BIOGRAPHICAL SKETCH. 163 

River], on the banks, or in the air over it ; the fishes, and 
their spawning and nests, their manners, their food ; the 
shad-flies which fill the air on a certain evening once a year, 
and which are snapped at by the fishes so ravenously that 
many of these die of repletion, the conical heaps of small 
stones on the river-shallows, one of which heaps will some- 
times overfill a cart, — these heaps the huge nests of small 
fishes, — the birds which frequent the stream, heron, duck, 
sheldrake, loon, osprey ; the snake, muskrat, otter, wood- 
chuck, and fox on the banks ; the turtle, frog, hyla, and 
cricket which made the banks vocal, — were all known to 
him, and, as it were, townsmen and fellow-creatures. . . . 
His power of observation seemed to indicate additional 
senses. He saw as with microscrope, heard as with ear- 
trumpet, and his memory was a photographic register of 
all he saw and heard. . . . His intimacy with animals sug- 
gested what Thomas Fuller records of Butler the apiolo- 
gist, that ' either he had told the bees things or the bees 
had told him ; ' snakes coiled round his leg ; the fishes swam 
into his hand, and he took them out of the water ; he pulled 
the woodchuck out of its hole by the tail, and took the 
foxes under his protection from the hunters." ^ 

Walden, published in 1854, is the record of Thoreau's 
life in the woods, and inasmuch as that life was not ex- 
hausted in the bare provision against bodily wants, nor in 
the observation even of what lay under the eye and ear, but 
was busied about the questions which perplex all who would 
give an account of themselves, the record mingles common 
fact and personal experience, the world without and the 
world within. Thoreau records what he sees and hears in 
the woods, but these sights and sounds are the texts for 
sermons upon human life. He undertook to get at the ele- 
mentary conditions of living, and to strip himself as far as 
he could of all that was unnecessary. In doing this he dis- 
covered many curious and ingenious things, and the unique 
^ Emerson's Biographical Sketch. 



164 HENRY DAVID THOREAU. 

method which he took was pretty sure to give him glimpses 
of life not seen by others. But the method had its disad- 
vantages, and chiefly this, that it was against the common 
order of things, and therefore the results reached could not 
be relied upon as sound and wholesome. 

The great value of Waldeti, and indeed of all Thoreau's 
books, is not in the philosophy, which is often shrewd and 
often strained and arbitrary, but in the disclosure made of 
the common facts of the world about one. He used to say, 
" I think nothing is to be hoped from you, if this bit of 
mould under your feet is not sweeter to you to eat than any 
other in this world, or in any world ; " and the whole drift 
of his writing is toward the development of the individual 
in the place where he happens to be. Thoreau's protesting 
attitude, and the stout resistance which he made to all in- 
fluences about him except the common ones of nature, be- 
tray themselves in the style of his writing. He has a way, 
almost insolent, of throwing out his thoughts, and growling 
forth his objections to the conventions of life, which ren- 
ders his writing often crabbed and inartistic. There is a 
rudeness which seems sometimes affected, and a carelessness 
which is contemptuous. Yet often his indifference to style 
is a rugged insistence on the strongest thought, and in his 
effort to express himself unreservedly he reaches a force 
and energy which are refreshing. 

A Week on the Concord and Merrimack Rivers and 
Waldeji were the only writings of Thoreau published in 
his lifetime. He printed contributions to the magazines 
from time to time, and out of these and his manuscripts 
have been gathered eight other volumes. Excursions in Field 
and Forest, The Maine Woods, Cape Cod, Letters to Va- 
rious Persons, A Ya7ikee in Canada, Early Sirring in 
Massachusetts, Summer and Wi7iter. To Excursions was 
prefixed a biographical sketch by R. W. Emerson, which 
gives one a very vivid portrait of this unique man. Cape 
Cod, which is the record of a walk taken the length of the 



BIOGRAPHICAL SKETCH. 165 

Cape, and Walden are likely to remain as the most finished 
and agreeable of Thoreau's books. All of his writings, 
however, will be searched for the evidence which they give 
of a mind singular for its independence, its resolute con- 
fronting of the problems of life, its insight into nature, its 
isolation, and its waywardness. 



WILD APPLES. 



THE HISTORY OF THE APPLE-TREE. 

It is remarkable how closely the history of the 
Apple-tree is connected with that of man. The geolo- 
gist tells us that the order of the Rosacece^ which 
includes the Apple, also the true Grasses, and the 
Labiatoe^ or Mints, were introduced only a short time 
previous to the appearance of man on the globe. 

It appears that apples made a part of the food of 
that unknown primitive people whose traces have 
lately been found at the bottom of the Swiss lakes, 
supposed to be older than the foundation of Kome, so 
old that they had no metallic implements. An entire 
black and shrivelled Crab-Apple has been recovered 
from their stores. 

Tacitus says of the ancient Germans that they sat- 
isfied their hunger with wild apples, among other 
things. 

Niebuhr ^ observes that " the words for a house, a 
field, a plough, ploughing, wine, oil, milk, sheep, 
apples, and others relating to agriculture and the gen- 
tler ways of life, agree in Latin and Greek, while the 
Latin words for all objects pertaining to war or the 
chase are utterly alien from the Greek." Thus the 
apple-tree may be considered a symbol of peace no 
less than the olive. 

^ A German historical critic of ancient life. 



WILD APPLES. 167 

The apple was early so important, and so generally 
distributed, that its name traced to its root in many 
languages signifies fruit in general. MrjXov [Melon], 
in Greek, means an apple, also the fruit of other 
trees, also a sheep and any cattle, and finally riches in 
general. 

The apple-tree has been celebrated by the Hebrews, 
Greeks, Komans, and Scandinavians. Some have 
thought that the first human pair were tempted by its 
fruit. Goddesses are fabled to have contended for it, 
dragons were set to watch it, and heroes were em- 
ployed to pluck it.^ 

The tree is mentioned in at least three places in the 
Old Testament, and its fruit in two or three more. 
Solomon sings, '^As the apple-tree among the trees 
of the wood, so is my beloved among the sons." And 
again, " Stay me with flagons, comfort me with ap- 
ples." The noblest part of man's noblest feature is 
named from this fruit, " the apple of the eye." 

The apple-tree is also mentioned by Homer and 
Herodotus. Ulysses saw in the glorious garden of 
Alcinoiis " pears and pomegranates and apple-trees 
bearing beautiful fruit." And according to Homer, 
apples were among the fruits which Tantalus could 
not pluck, the wind ever blowing their boughs away 
from him. Theophrastus knew and described the 
apple-tree as a botanist. 

According to the prose Edda,^ " Iduna keeps in a 
box the apples which the gods, when they feel old age 
approaching, have only to taste of to become young 
again. It is in this manner that they will be kept in 

1 The Greek myths especially referred to are The Choice of 
Paris and The Apples of the Hesperides. 

2 The stories of the early Scandinavians. . 



168 HENRY DAVID THOREAU. 

renovated youth until Ragnarok " (or the destruction 
of the Gods). 

I learn from Loudon ^ that " the ancient Welsh 
bards were rewarded for excelling in song by the 
token of the apple-spray ; " and " in the Highlands 
of Scotland the apple-tree is the badge of the clan 
Lamont." 

The apple-tree belongs chiefly to the northern tem- 
perate zone. Loudon says, that "it grows spontane- 
ously in every part of Europe except the frigid zone, 
and throughout Western Asia, China and Japan." 
We have also two or three varieties of the apple indi- 
genous in North America. The cultivated apple-tree 
was first introduced into this country by the earliest 
settlers, and is thought to do as well or better here 
than anywhere else. Probably some of the varieties 
which are now cultivated were first introduced into 
Britain by the Romans. 

Pliny, adopting the distinction of Theophrastus, 
says, " Of trees there are some which are altogether 
wild, some more civilized." Theophrastus includes 
the apple among the last ; and, indeed, it is in this 
sense the most civilized of all trees. It is as harmless 
as a dove, as beautiful as a rose, and as valuable as 
flocks and herds. It has been longer cultivated than 
any other, and so is more humanized ; and who knows 
but, like the dog, it will at length be no longer trace- 
able to its wild original? It migrates with man, like 
the dog and horse and cow ; first, perchance, from 
Greece to Italy, thence to England, thence to America ; 
and our Western emigrant is still marching steadily 
toward the setting sun with the seeds of the apple in 

1 An English authority on the culture of orchards and gar- 
dens. 



WILD APPLES. 169 

his pocket, or perhaps a few young trees strapped to 
his load. At least a million apple-trees are thus set 
farther westward this year than any cultivated ones 
grew last year. Consider how the Blossom-Week, 
like the Sabbath, is thus annually spreading over the 
prairies ; for when man migrates he carries with him 
not only his birds, quadrupeds, insects, vegetables, 
and his very sward, but his orchard also. 

The leaves and tender twigs are an agreeable food 
to many domestic animals, as the cow, horse, sheep, 
and goat ; and the fruit is sought after by the first, 
as well as by the hog. Thus there appears to have 
existed a natural alliance between these animals and 
this tree from the first. '' The fruit of the Crab in the 
forests of France " is said to be " a great resource for 
the wild boar." 

Not only the Indian, but many indigenous insects, 
birds, and quadrupeds, welcomed the apple-tree to 
these shores. The tent-caterpillar saddled her eggs on 
the very first twig that was formed, and it has since 
shared her affections with the wild cherry ; and the 
canker-worm also in a measure abandoned the elm to 
feed on it. As it grew apace, the bluebird, robin, 
cherry-bird, king-bird, and many more, came with 
haste and built their nests and warbled in its boughs, 
and so became orchard-birds, and multiplied more 
than ever. It was an era in the history of their race. 
The downy woodpecker found such a savory morsel 
under its bark, that he perforated it in a ring quite 
round the tree before he left it, — a thing which he 
had never done before, to my knowledge. It did not 
take the partridge long to find out how sweet its buds 
were, and every winter eve she flew, and still flies, 
from the wood, to pluck them, much to the farmer's 



170 HENRY DAVID THOREAU. 

sorrow. The rabbit, too, was not slow to learn the 
taste of its twigs and bark ; and when the fruit was 
ripe, the squirrel half-rolled, half-carried it to his hole ; 
and even the musquash crept up the bank from the 
brook at evening, and greedily devoured it, until he 
had worn a path in the grass there ; and when it was 
frozen and thawed, the crow and the jay were glad to 
taste it occasionally. The owl crept into the first 
apple-tree that became hollow, and fairly hooted with 
delight, finding it just the place for him ; so, settling- 
down into it, he has remained there ever since. 

My theme being the Wild Apple, I will merely 
glance at some of the seasons in the annual growth of 
the cultivated apple, and pass on. to my special prov- 
ince. 

The flowers of the apple are perhaps the most beau- 
tiful of any tree, so copious and so delicious to both 
sight and scent. The walker is frequently tempted to 
turn and linger near some more than usually hand- 
some one, whose blossoms are two thirds expanded. 
How superior it is in these respects to the pear, whose 
blossoms are neither colored nor fragrant ! 

By the middle of July, green apples are so large as 
to remind us of coddling, and of the autumn. The 
sward is commonly strewed with little ones which fall 
still-born, as it were, — Nature thus thinning them for 
us. The Roman writer Palladius said : " If apples 
are inclined to fall before their time, a stone placed in 
a split root will retain them." Some such notion, still 
surviving, may account for some of the stones which 
we see placed to be overgrown in the forks of trees. 
They have a saying in Suffolk, England, — 

" At Michaelmas time, or a little before, 
Half an apple goes to the core." 



WILD APPLES. 171 

Early apples begin to be ripe about the first of 
August ; but I think that none of them are so good 
to eat as some to smell. One is worth more to scent 
your handkerchief with than any perfume which they 
sell in the shops. The fragrance of some fruits is not 
to be forgotten, along with that of flowers. Some 
gnarly apple which I pick up in the road reminds me 
by its fragrance of all the wealth of Pomona,^ — car- 
rying me forward to those days when they will be 
collected in golden and ruddy heaps in the orchards 
and about the cider-mills. 

A week or two later, as you are going by orchards 
or gardens, especially in the evenings, you pass through 
a little region possessed by the fragrance of ripe ap- 
ples, and thus enjoy them without price, and without 
robbing anybody. 

There is thus about all natural products a certain 
volatile and ethereal quality which represents their 
highest value, and which cannot be vulgarized, or 
bought and sold. No mortal has ever enjoyed the per- 
fect flavor of any fruit, and only the godlike among 
men begin to taste its ambrosial qualities. For nectar 
and ambrosia are only those fine flavors of every 
earthly fruit which our coarse palates fail to perceive, 
— just as we occupy the heaven of the gods without 
knowing it. When I see a particularly mean man 
carrying a load of fair and fragrant early apples to 
market, I seem to see a contest going on between him 
and his horse, on the one side, and the apples on the 
other, and, to my mind, the apples always gain it. 
Pliny says that apples are the heaviest of all things, 
and that the oxen begin to sweat at the mere sight of 
a load of them. Our driver begins to lose his load 
^ The Roman goddess of fruit and fruit-trees. 



172 HENRY DAVID THOREAU. 

the moment lie tries to transport them to where they 
do not belong, that is, to any but the most beautiful. 
Though he gets out from time to time, and feels of 
them, and thinks they are all there, I see the stream 
of their evanescent and celestial qualities going to 
heaven from his cart, while the pulp and skin and 
core only are going to market. They are not apples, 
but pomace. Are not these still Iduna's apples, the 
taste of which keeps the gods forever young? and 
think you that they will let Loki or Thjassi carry 
them off to Jotunheim,^ while they grow wrinkled and 
gray ? No, for Eagnarok, or the destruction of the 
gods, is not yet. 
•\ There is another thinning of the fruit, commonly 
near the end of August or in Sei)tember, v/hen the 
ground is strewn with windfalls; and this happens 
especially when high winds occur after rain. In some 
orchards you may see fully three quarters of the whole 
crop on the ground, lying in a circular form beneath 
the trees, yet hai'd and green, — or, if it is a hillside, 
rolled far down the hill. However, it is an ill wind 
that blows nobody any good. All the country over, 
people are busy picking up the windfalls, and this 
will make them cheap for early apple-pies. 

In October, the leaves falling, the apples are more 
distinct on the trees. I saw one year in a neighboring 
town some trees fuller of fruit than I remember to 
have ever seen before, small yellow apples hanging 
over the road. The branches were gracefully droop- 
ing with their weight, like a barberry-bush, so that 

^ Jotuuheim (^Ye{r)t'-im-Mme) in Scandinavian mythology was 
the home of the Jotmi or Giants. Loki was a descendant of the 
gods, and a companion of the Giants. Thjassi {Tee-assy) was 
a giant. 



WILD APPLES. 173 

the whole tree acquired a new character. Even the 
topmost branches, instead of standing erect, spread 
and drooped in all directions ; and there were so many 
poles supporting the lower ones, that they looked like 
pictures of banian-trees. As an old English manu- 
script says, " The mo appelen the tree bereth the 
more sche boweth to the folk." 

Surely the apple is the noblest of fruits. Let the 
most beautiful or the swiftest have it. That should 
be the " going " price of apples. 

Between the fifth and twentieth of October I see 
the barrels lie under the trees. And perhaj^s I talk 
with one who is selecting some choice barrels to fulfil 
an order. He turns a specked one over many times 
before he leaves it out. If I were to tell what is pass- 
ing in my mind, I should say that every one was 
specked which he had handled ; for he rubs off all the 
bloom, and those fugacious ethereal qualities leave it. 
Cool evenings prompt the farmers to make haste, and 
at length I see only the ladders here and there left 
leaning against the trees. 

It would be well if we accepted these gifts with 
more joy and gratitude, and did not^ think it enough 
simply to put a fresh load of compost about the tree. 
Some old English customs are suggestive at least. I 
find them described chiefly in Brand's '' Popular An- 
tiquities." It appears that " on Christmas eve the 
farmers and their men in Devonshire take a larsre 
bowl of cider, with a toast in it, and carrying it in 
state to the orchard, they salute the apple-trees with 
much ceremony, in order to make them bear well the 
next season." This salutation consists in " throwing 
some of the cider about the roots of the tree, placing 
bits of the toast on the branches," and then, " encir- 



174 HENRY DAVID THOREAU. 

cling one of the best bearing trees in the orchard, 
they drink the following toast three several times : — 
" * Here 's to thee, old apple-tree, 
Whence thou mayst bud, and wlience thou mayst blow, 
And whence thou mayst bear apples enow ! 
Hats-full ! caps-full ! 
Bushel, bushel, sacks-full ! 
And my pockets full, too ! Hurra! ' " 

Also what was called " apple-howling " used to be 
practised in various counties of England on New- 
Year's eve. A troop of boys visited the different 
orchards, and, encircling the apple-trees, repeated the 
following words : — 

" Stand fast, root ! bear well, top ! 
Pray God send us a good howling crop : 
Every twig, apples big ; 
Every bow, apples enow ! " 

" They then shout in chorus, one of the boys accom- 
panying them on a cow's horn. During this cere- 
mony they rap the trees with their sticks." This is 
called " wassailing " the trees, and is thought by some 
to be " a relic of the heathen sacrifice to Pomona." 

Herrick sings, — 

" Wassaile the trees that they may beare 
You many a plum and many a peare ; 
For more or less fruits they will bring 
As you so give them wassailing." 

Our poets have as yet a better right to sing of cider 
than of wine ; but it behooves them to sing better than 
English Phillips did, else they will do no credit to 
their Muse. 

THE WILD APPLE. 

So much for the more civilized apple-trees (urha- 
7iiores, as Pliny calls them). I love better to go 



WILD APPLES. 175 

through the old orchards of ungrafted apple-trees, at 
whatever season of the year, — so irregularly planted : 
sometimes two trees standing close together ; and the 
rows so devious that you would think that they not 
only had grown while the owner was sleeping, but had 
been set out by him in a somnambulic state. The 
rows of grafted fruit will never tempt me to wander 
amid them like these. But I now, alas, speak rather 
from memory than from any recent experience, such 
ravages have been made ! 

Some soils, like a rocky tract called the Easter- 
brooks Country in my neighborhood, are so suited to 
the apple, that it will grow faster in them without any 
care, or if only the ground is broken up once a year, 
than it will in many places with any amount of care. 
The owners of this tract allow that the soil is excel- 
lent for fruit, but they say that it is so rocky that 
they have not patience to plough it, and that, together 
with the distance, is the reason why it is not culti- 
vated. There are, or were recently, extensive or- 
chards there standing without order. Nay, they spring 
up wild and bear well there in the midst of pines, 
birches, maples, and oaks. I am often surprised to 
see rising amid these trees the rounded tops of apple- 
trees glowing with red or yellow fruit, in harmony 
with the autumnal tints of the forest. 

Going up the side of a cliff about the first of No- 
vember, I saw a vigorous young apple-tree, which, 
planted by birds or cows, had shot up amid the rocks 
and open woods there, and had now much fruit on it, 
uninjured by the frosts, when all cultivated apples were 
gathered. It was a rank wild growth, with many green 
leaves on it still, and made an impression of thorni- 
ness. The fruit was hard and green, but looked as if 



176 HENRY DAVID THOREAU. 

it would be palatable in the winter. Some was dan- 
gling on the twigs, but more half-buried in the wet 
leaves under the tree, or rolled far down the hill amid 
the rocks. The owner knows nothing of it. The 
day was not observed when it first blossomed, nor 
when it first bore fruit, unless by the chickadee. 
There was no dancing on the green beneath it in its 
honor, and now there is no hand to pluck its fruit, — 
which is only gnawed by squirrels, as I perceive. It 
has done double duty, — not only borne this crop, but 
each twig has grown a foot into the air. And this is 
iiuch fruit ! bigger than many berries, we must admit, 
and carried home will be sound and palatable next 
spring. What care I for Iduna's apples so long as I 
can get these ? 

When I go by this shrub thus late and hardy, and 
see its dangling fruit, I respect the tree, and I am 
grateful for Nature's bounty, even though I cannot 
eat it. Here on this rugged and woody hillside has 
grown an apple-tree, not planted by man, no relic of 
a former orchard, but a natural growth, like the pines 
and oaks. Most fruits which we prize and use de- 
pend entirely on our care. Corn and grain, potatoes, 
peaches, melons, etc., depend altogether on our plant- 
ing ; but the apple emulates man's independence and 
enterprise. It is not simply carried, as I have said, 
but, like him, to some extent, it has migrated to this 
New World, and is even, here and there, making its 
way amid the aboriginal trees ; just as the ox and 
dog and horse sometimes run wild and maintain them- 
selves. 

Even the sourest and crabbedest apple, growing in 
the most unfavorable position, suggests such thoughts 
as these, it is so noble a fruit. 



WILD APPLES. Ill 



THE CRAB. 

Nevertheless, oicr wild apple is wild only like myself, 
perchance, who belong not to the aboriginal race here, 
but have strayed into the woods from the cultivated 
stock. Wilder still, as I have said, there grows else- 
where in this country a native and aboriginal Crab- 
Apple, " whose nature has not yet been modified by 
cultivation." It is found from Western New York to 
Minnesota and southward. Michaux^ says that its 
ordinary height '' is fifteen or eighteen feet, but it is 
sometimes found twenty-five or thirty feet high," and 
that the large ones "exactly resemble the common 
apple-tree." "The flowers are white mingled with 
rose-color, and are collected in corymbs." They are 
remarkable for their delicious odor. The fruit, ac- 
cordino" to him, is about an inch and a half in diame- 
ter, and is intensely acid. Yet they make fine sweet- 
meats, and also cider of them. He concludes, that 
"if, on being cultivated, it does not yield new and 
palatable varieties, it will at least be celebrated for 
the beauty of its flowers, and for the sweetness of its 
perfume." 

I never saw the Crab- Apple till May, 1861. I had 
heard of it through Michaux, but more modern bot- 
anists, so far as I know, have not treated it as of any 
peculiar importance. Thus it was a half -fabulous tree 
to me. I contemplated a pilgrimage to the " Glades," 
a portion of Pennsylvania, where it was said to grow 
to perfection. I thought of sending to a nursery for 
it, but doubted if they had it, or would distinguish it 
from European varieties. At last I had occasion to 
go to Minnesota, and on entering Michigan I began 
1 Pronounced mee-sho' ; a French botanist and traveller. 



178 HENRY DAVID THOREAU. 

to notice from the cars a tree with handsome rose- 
colored flowers. At first I thought it some variety of 
thorn ; but it was not long before the truth flashed on 
me, that this was my long-sought Crab-Apple. It 
was the prevailing flowering shrub or tree to be seen 
from the cars at that season of the year, — about the 
middle of May. But the cars never stopped before 
one, and so I was launched on the bosom of the Mis- 
sissippi without having touched one, experiencing the 
fate of Tantalus. On arriving at St. Anthony's Falls, 
I was sorry to be told that I was too far north for the 
Crab-Apple. Nevertheless I succeeded in finding it 
about eight miles west of the Falls ; touched it and 
smelled it, and secured a lingering corymb of flowers 
for my herbarium. This must have been near its 
northern limit. 

HOW THE WILD APPLE GROWS. 

But though these are indigenous, like the Indians, 
I doubt whether they are any hardier than those back- 
woodsmen among the apple-trees, which, though de- 
scended from cultivated stocks, plant themselves in 
distant fields and forests, where the soil is favorable 
to them. I know of no trees which have more diffi- 
culties to contend with, and which more sturdily resist 
their foes. These are the ones whose story we have 
to tell. It oftentimes reads thus : — 

Near the beginning of May, we notice little thickets 
of apple-trees just springing up in the pastures where 
cattle have been, — as the rocky ones of our Easter- 
brooks Country, or the top of Nobscot Hill in Sud- 
bury. One or two of these perhaps survive the 
drought and other accidents, — their very birthplace 
defending tliem against the encroaching grass and 
some other dangers, at first. 



WILD APPLES. 1T9 

In two years' time 't had thus 
Reached the level of the rocks, 

Admired the stretching world, 
Nor feared the wandering iiocks. 

But at this tender age 

Its sufferings began : 
There came a browsing ox 

And cut it down a span. 

This time, perhaps, the ox does not notice it amid the 
grass ; but the next year, when it has grown more 
stout, he recognizes it for a fellow-emigrant from the 
old country, the flavor of whose leaves and twigs he 
well knows ; and though at first he pauses to welcome 
it, and express his surprise, and gets for answer, " The 
same cause that brought you here brought me," he 
nevertheless browses it again, reflecting, it may be, 
that he has some title to it. 

Thus cut down annually, it does not despair ; but, 
putting forth two short twigs for every one cut off, it 
spreads out low along the ground in the hollows or 
between the rocks, growing more stout and scrubby, 
until it forms, not a tree as yet, but a little pyramidal, 
stiff, twiggy mass, almost as solid and impenetrable 
as a rock. Some of the densest and most impenetra- 
ble clumps of bushes that I have ever seen, as well 
on account of the closeness and stubbornness of their 
branches as of their thorns, have been these wild-apple 
scrubs. They are more like the scrubby fir and black 
spruce on which you stand, and sometimes walk, on 
the tops of mountains, where cold is the demon they 
contend with, than anything else. No wonder they 
are prompted to grow thorns at last, to defend them- 
selves against such foes. In their thorniness, how- 
ever, there is no malice, only some malic acid. 



180 HENRY DAVID THOREAU. 

The rocky pastures of the tract I have referred to 
— for they maintain their ground best in a rocky 
fiekl — are thickly sprinkled with these little tufts, 
reminding you often of some rigid gray mosses or 
lichens, and you see thousands of little trees just 
springing up between them, with the seed still at- 
tached to them. 

Being regularly clipped all around each year by the 
cows, as a hedge witli shears, they are often of a per- 
fect conical or pyramidal form, from one to four feet 
high, and more or less sharp, as if trimmed by the 
gardener's art. In the pastures on Nobscot Hill and 
its spurs they make fine dark shadows when the sun 
is low. They are also an excellent covert from hawks 
for many small birds that roost and build in tliem. 
Whole flocks perch in them at night, and I have seen 
three robins' nests in one which was six feet in dia- 
meter. 

No doubt many of these are already old trees, if 
you reckon from the day they were planted, but in- 
fants still when you consider their development and 
the long life before them. I counted the annual rings 
of some which were just one foot high, and as wide as 
high, and found that they were about twelve years 
old, but quite sound and thrifty ! They were so low 
that they were unnoticed by the walker, while many 
of their contemporaries from the nurseries were al- 
ready bearing considerable crops. But what you gain 
in time is perhaps in this case, too, lost in power, — 
that is, in the vigor of the tree. This is their pyram- 
idal state. 

The cows continue to browse them thus for twenty 
years or more, keeping them down and compelling 
them to spread, until at last they are so broad that 



WILD APPLES. 181 

they become their own fence, when some interior 
shoot, which their foes cannot reach, darts upward 
with joy : for it has not forgotten its high calling, and 
bears its own peculiar fruit in triumph. 

Such are the tactics by which it finally defeats its 
bovine foes. Now, if you have watched the progress 
of a particular shrub, you will see that it is no longer 
a simple pyramid or cone, but out of its apex there 
rises a sprig or two, growing more lustily perchance 
than an orchard -tree, since the pla^it now devotes the 
whole of its repressed energy to these upright parts. 
In a short time these become a small tree, an inverted 
pyramid resting on the apex of the other, so that the 
whole has now the form of a vast hour-glass. The 
spreading bottom, having served its purpose, finally 
disappears, and the generous tree permits the now 
harmless cows to come in and stand in its shade, and 
rub against and redden its trunk, which has grown in 
spite of them, and even to taste a jiart of its fruit, and 
so disperse the seed. 

Thus the cows create their own shade and food ; 
and the tree, its hour-glass being inverted, lives a sec- 
ond life, as it were. 

It is an important question with some nowadays, 
whether you should trim young apple-trees as high as 
your nose or as high as your eyes. The ox trims 
them up as high as he can reach, and that is about 
the right height, I think. 

In spite of wandering kine and other adverse cir- 
cumstance, that despised shrub, valued only by small 
birds as a covert and shelter from hawks, has its 
blossom-week at last, and in course of time its har- 
vest, sincere, though small. 

By the end of some October, when its leaves have 



182 HENRY DAVID THOREAU. 

fallen, I frequently see such a central sprig, whose 
progress I have watched, when I thought it had for- 
gotten its destiny, as I had, bearing its first crop of 
small green or yellow or rosy fruit, which the cows can- 
not get at over the bushy and thorny hedge which sur- 
rounds it ; and I make haste to taste the new and unde- 
scribed variety. We have all heard of the numerous 
varieties of fruit invented by Van Mons ^ and Knight.''^ 
This is the system of Van Cow, and she has invented 
far more and more memorable varieties than both of 
them. 

Through what hardships it may attain to bear a 
sweet fruit ! Though somewhat small, it may prove 
equal, if not superior, in flavor to that which has 
grown in a garden, — will perchance be all the sweeter 
and more palatable for the very difficulties it has had to 
contend with. Who knows but this chance wild fruit, 
planted by a cow or a bird on some remote and rocky 
hillside, where it is as yet unobserved by man, may be 
the choicest of all its kind, and foreign potentates 
shall hear of it, and royal societies seek to propagate 
it, though the virtues of the perhaps truly crabbed 
owner of the soil may never be heard of, — at least, 
beyond the limits of his village? It was thus the 
Porter and the Baldwin grew. 

Every wild-apple shrub excites our expectation thus, 
somewhat as every wild child. It is, perhaps, a prince 
in disguise. What a lesson to man ! So are human 
beings, referred to the highest standard, the celestial 
fruit which they suggest and aspire to bear, browsed 
on by fate ; and only the most persistent and strong- 
est genius defends itself and prevails, sends a tender 

^ A Belgian chemist and horticulturist. 
2 An English vegetable physiologist. 



WILD APPLES. 183 

scion upward at last, and drops its perfect fruit on 
the ungrateful earth. Poets and philosophers and 
statesmen thus spring up in the country pastures, and 
outlast the hosts of unoriginal men. 

Such is always the pursuit of knowledge. The ce- 
lestial fruits, the golden apples of the Hesperides, are 
ever guarded by a hundred-headed dragon which never 
sleeps, so that it is an herculean labor to pluck them. 

This is one and the most remarkable way in which 
the wild apple is propagated ; but commonly it springs 
up at wide intervals in woods and swamps, and by the 
sides of roads, as the soil may suit it, and grows with 
comparative rapidity. Those which grow in dense 
woods are very tall and slender. I frequently pluck 
from these trees a perfectly mild and tamed fruit. 
As Palladius says, "And the ground is strewn with 
the fruit of an unbidden apple-tree." 

It is an old notion, that, if these wild trees do not 
bear a valuable fruit of their own, they are the best 
stocks by which to transmit to posterity the most highly 
prized qualities of others. However, I am not in 
search of stocks, but the wild fruit itself, whose fierce 
gust has suffered no " inteneration." It is not my 

" highest plot 
To plant the Bergamot." 

THE FRUIT, AND ITS FLAVOR. 

The time for wild apples is the last of October and 
the first of November. They then get to be palatable, 
for they ripen late, and they are still, perhaps, as 
beautiful as ever. I make a great account of these 
fruits, which the farmers do not think it worth the 
while to gather, — wild flavors of the Muse, vivacious 
and inspiriting. The farmer thinks that he has better 



184 HENRY DAVID THOREAU. 

in his barrels ; but lie is mistaken, unless he has a 
walker's appetite and imagination, neither of which 
can he have. 

Such as grow quite wild, and are left out till the 
first of November, I presume that the owner does not 
mean to gather. They belong to children as wild as 
themselves, — to certain active boys that I know, — 
to the wild-eyed woman of the fields, to whom nothing 
comes amiss, who gleans after all the world, — and, 
moreover, to us walkers. We have met with them, 
and they are ours. These rights, long enough insisted 
upon, have come to be an institution in some old 
countries, where they have learned how to live. I 
hear that '' the custom of grippling, which may be 
called apple-gleaning, is, or was formerly, practised in 
Herefordshire. It consists in leaving a few apples, 
which are called the gripj^les, on every tree, after the 
general gathering, for the boys, who go with climbing- 
poles and bags to collect them." 

As for those I speak of, I pluck them as a wild 
fruit, native to this quarter of the earth, — fruit of 
old trees that have been dying ever since I was a boy 
and are not yet dead, frequented only by the wood- 
pecker and the squirrel, deserted now by the owner, 
who has not faith enough to look under their boughs. 
From the appearance of the tree-top, at a little dis- 
tance, you would expect nothing but lichens to drop 
from it, but your faith is rewarded by finding the 
ground strewn with spirited fruit, — some of it, per- 
haps, collected at squirrel-holes, with the marks of their 
teeth by which they carried them, — some containing 
a cricket or two silently feeding within, and some, 
especially in damp days, a shelless snail. The very 
sticks and stones lodged in the tree-top might have 



WILD APPLES. 185 

convinced you of the savoriness of the fruit which has 
been so eagerly sought after in past years. 

I have seen no account of these among the " Fruits 
and Fruit-Trees of America," though they are more 
memorable to my taste than the grafted kinds ; more 
racy and wild American flavors do they possess, when 
October and November, when December and January, 
and perhaps February and March even, have assuaged 
them somewhat. An old farmer in my neighborhood, 
who always selects the right word, says that ''they 
have a kind of bow-arrow tang." 

Apples for grafting appear to have been selected 
commonly, not so much for their spirited flavor, as 
for their mildness, their size, and bearing qualities, — 
not so much for their beauty, as for their fairness and 
soundness. Indeed, I have no faith in the selected 
lists of pomological gentlemen. Their "Favorites" 
and " Non-suches " and " Seek-no-farthers," when I 
have fruited them, commonly turn out very tame and 
forgetable. They are eaten with comparatively little 
zest, and have no real tang nor smach to them. 

What if some of these wildings are acrid and puck- 
ery, genuine verjuice., do they not still belong to the 
Pomacem^ which are uniformly innocent and kind to 
our race? I still begrudge them to the cider-mill. 
Perhaps they are not fairly ripe yet. 

No wonder that these small and high-colored apples 
are thought to make the best cider. Loudon quotes 
from the HereforchUre Report that "apples of a 
small size are always, if equal in quality, to be pre- 
ferred to those of a larger size, in order that the rind 
and kernel may bear the greatest proportion to the 
pulp, which affords the weakest and most watery 
juice." And he says, that, " to prove this, Dr, Sy- 



186 HENRY DAVID THOREAU. 

monds of Hereford, about tlie year 1800, made one 
hogshead of cider entirely from the rinds and cores of 
apples, and another from the pulp only, when the first 
was found of extraordinary strength and flavor, while 
the latter was sweet and insipid." 

Evelyn ^ says that the " Ked-strake " was the favor- 
ite cider-apple in his day ; and he quotes one Dr. New- 
burg as saying, " In Jersey 't is a general observation, 
as I hear, that the more of red any apple has in its 
rind, the more proper it is for this use. Pale-faced 
apples they exclude as much as may be from their 
cider-vat." This opinion still prevails. 

All apples are good in November. Those which 
the farmer leaves out as unsalable, and unpalatable to 
those who frequent the markets, are choicest fruit to 
the walker. But it is remarkable that the wild apple, 
which I praise as so spirited and racy when eaten in 
the fields or woods, being brought into the house, has 
frequently a harsh and crabbed taste. The Saunter- 
er's Apple not even the saunterer can eat in the house. 
The palate rejects it there, as it does haws and acorns, 
and demands a tamed one ; for there you miss the No- 
vember air, which is the sauce it is to be eaten with. 
Accordingly, when Tityrus, seeing the lengthening 
shadows, invites Meliboeus to go home and pass the 
night with him, he promises him mild apples and soft 
chestnuts. I frequently pluck wild apples of so rich 
and spicy a flavor that I wonder all orchardists do not 
get a scion from that tree, and I fail not to bring 
home my pockets full. But perchance, when I take 
one out of my desk and taste it in my chamber I find 
it unexpectedly crude, — sour enough to set a squir- 
rel's teeth on edge and make a jay scream. 

1 An English writer of the seventeenth century. 



WILD APPLES. 187 

These aj^ples have hung in the wind and frost and 
rain till they have absorbed the qualities of the weather 
or season, and thus are highly seasoned, and they 
pierce and sting and permeate us with their spirit. 
They must be eaten in season, accordingly, — that is, 
out-of-doors. 

To appreciate the wild and sharp flavors of these 
October fruits, it is necessary that you be breathing 
the sharp October or November air. The out-door air 
and exercise which the walker gets give a different 
tone to his palate, and he craves a fruit which the 
sedentary would call harsh and crabbed. They must 
be eaten in the fields, w^hen your system is all aglow 
with exercise, when the frosty weather nips your fin- 
gers, the wind rattles the bare boughs or rustles the 
few remaining leaves, and the jay is heard screaming 
around. What is sour in the house a bracing walk 
makes sweet. Some of these apples might be labelled, 
" To be eaten in the wind." 

Of course no flavors are thrown away ; they are in- 
tended for the taste that is up to them. Some ajDples 
have two distinct flavors, and perhaps one-half of 
them must be eaten in the house, the other out-doors. 
One Peter Whitney wrote from Northborough in 
1782, for the Proceedings of the Boston Academy, de- 
scribing an apple-tree in that town " producing fruit 
of opposite qualities, part of the same apj^le being fre- 
quently sour and the other sweet ; " also some all sour, 
and others all sweet, and this diversity on all parts of 
the tree. 

There is a wild apple on Nawshawtuck Hill in my 
town which has to me a peculiarly pleasant bitter 
tang, not perceived till it is three-quarters tasted. It 
remains on the tongue. As you eat it, it smells ex- 



188 HENRY DAVID THOREAU. 

actly like a squash-bug. It is a sort of triumph to eat 
aud relish it. 

I hear that the fruit of a kind of plum-tree in Pro- 
vence is '' called Prunes sibarelles, because it is im- 
possible to whistle after having eaten them, from their 
sourness." But perhaps they were only eaten in the 
house and in summer, and if tried out-of-doors in a 
stinging atmosphere, who knows but you could whistle 
an octave higher and clearer ? 

In the fields only are the sours and bitters of Na- 
ture appreciated ; just as the wood-chopper eats his 
meal in a sunny glade, in the middle of a winter day, 
with content, basks in a sunny ray there, and dreams 
of summer in a degree of cold which, experienced in a 
chamber, would make a student miserable. They who 
are at v;ork abroad are not cold, but rather it is they 
who sit shivering in houses. As with temperatures, 
so with flavors ; as with cold and heat, so with sour 
and sweet. This natural raciness, the sours and bit- 
ters which the diseased palate refuses, are the true 
condiments. 

Let your condiments be in the condition of your 
senses. To appreciate the flavor of these wild apples 
requires vigorous and healthy senses, pwpillm^ firm 
and erect on the tongue and palate, not easily flattened 
and tamed. 

From my experience with wild apples, I can under- 
stand that there may be reason for a savage's prefer- 
ring many kinds of food which the civilized man re- 
jects. The former has the palate of an out-door man. 
It takes a savage or wild taste to appreciate a wild 
fruit. 

1 A Latin word, accent on the second syllable, meaning here 
the rough surface of the tongue and palate. 



WILD APPLES. 189 

What a healthy out-of-door appetite it takes to rel- 
ish the apple of life, the apple of the world, then ! 

" Nor is it every apple I desire, 

Nor that which pleases every palate best ; 
'T is not the lasting Deuxan I require, 

Nor yet the red-cheeked Greening I request, 
Nor that which first beshrewed the name of wife, 
Nor that whose beauty caused the golden strife : 
No, no ! bring nie an apple from the tree of life." 

So there is one thought for the field, another for the 
house. I would have my thoughts, like wild apples, 
to be food for walkers, and will not warrant them to 
be palatable, if tasted in the house. 

THEIR BEAUTY. 

Almost all wild apples are handsome. They can- 
not be too gnarly and crabbed and rusty to look at. 
The gnarliest will have some redeeming traits even to 
the eye. You will discover some evening redness 
dashed or sprinkled on some protuberance or in some 
cavity. It is rare that the summer lets an apple go 
without streaking or spotting it on some part of its 
sphere. It will have some red stains, commemorating 
the mornings and evenings it has witnessed ; some 
dark and rusty blotches, in memory of the clouds and 
foggy, mildewy days that have passed over it ; and a 
spacious field of green reflecting the general face of 
Nature, — green even as the fields ; or a yellow 
ground, which implies a milder flavor, — yellow as the 
harvest, or russet as the hills. 

Apples, these I mean, unspeakably fair, — apples 
not of Discord, but Concord ! Yet not so rare but 
that the homeliest may have a share. Painted by 
the frosts, some a uniform clear bright yellow, or red, 



190 HENRY DAVID THOREAU. 

or crimson, as if their spheres had regularly revolved, 
and enjoyed the influence of the sun on all sides alike, 
— some with the faintest pink blush imaginable, — 
some brindled with deep red streaks like a cow, or 
with hundreds of fine blood-red rays running regularly 
from the stem-dimple to the blossom-end, like merid- 
ional lines, on a straw-colored ground, — some touched 
with a greenish rust, like a fine lichen, here and there, 
with crimson blotches or eyes more or less confluent 
and fiery when wet, — and others gnarly, and freckled 
or peppered all over on the stem side with fine crim- 
son spots on a white ground, as if accidentally sprin- 
kled from the brush of Him who paints the autumn 
leaves. Others, again, are sometimes red inside, per- 
fused with a beautiful blush, fairy food, too beautiful 
to eat, — apple of the Hesperides, apple of the even- 
ing sky ! But like shells and pebbles on the sea- shore, 
they must be seen as they sparkle amid the withering 
leaves in some dell in the woods, in the autumnal air, 
or as they lie in the wet grass, and not when they 
have wilted and faded in the house. 

THE NAMING OF THEM. 

It would be a pleasant pastime to find suitable 
names for the hundred varieties which go to a single 
heap at the cider-mill. Would it not tax a man's 
invention, — no one to be named after a man, and 
all in the lingua vernacula f ^ Who shall stand god- 
father at the christening of the wild apples ? It would 
exhaust the Latin and Greek languages, if they were 
used, and make the lingua vernacula flag. We 
should have to call in the sunrise and the sunset, the 
rainbow and the autumn woods and the wild flowers, 
^ Lingua vernac'ula, common speech. 



WILD APPLES. 191 

and the woodpecker and the purple finch, and the 
squirrel and the jay and the butterfly, the November 
traveller and the truant boy, to our aid. 

In 1836 there were in the garden of the London 
Horticultural Society more than fourteen hundred 
distinct sorts. But here are species which they have 
not in their catalogue, not to mention the varieties 
which our Crab might yield to cultivation. Let us enu- 
merate a few of these. I find myself compelled, after 
all, to give the Latin names of some for the benefit of 
those who live where English is not spoken, — for 
they are likely to have a world-wide reputation. 

There is, first of all, the Wood-Apple (i!i«Zws syl- 
vaticci) ; the Blue-Jay Apple ; the Apple which grows 
in Dells in the Woods (^sylvestrivallis), also in Hol- 
lows in Pastures (campestrwallis) ; the Apple that 
grows in an old Cellar-Hole (^Malus cellaris) ; the 
Meado w- Apple ; the Partridge- Apple ; the Truant's 
Apple {CessatoiHs'), which no boy will ever go by 
without knocking off some, however late it may be ; 
the Saunterer's Apple, — you must lose yourself be- 
fore you can find the way to that ; the Beauty of the 
Air {Decus Aeris') ; December-Eating ; the Frozen- 
Thawed (^gelato-soluta)^ good only in that state ; the 
Concord Apple, possibly the same with the Musketa- 
quidensis ; the Assabet Apple ; the Brindled Apple ; 
Wine of New England ; the Chickaree Apple ; the 
Green Apple QMalus viridis) ; — this has many 
synonyms ; in an imperfect state, it is the Cholera 
morhifera aut dysentei^ifera^ pueridis dilecUssima ; ^ 
— the Apple which Atalanta stopped to pick up ; the 
Hedge - Apple (Mains Sepkmi) ; the Slug - Apple 

1 The apple that brings the disease of cholera and of dysen- 
tery, the fruit that small boys like best. 



192 HENRY DAVID THOREAU. 

(limaced) ; the Railroad- Apple, which perhaps came 
from a core thrown out of the cars ; the Apple whose 
Fruit we tasted in our Youth ; our Particular Apple, 
not to be found in any catalogue, — Pedestrium So- 
latium ; ^ also the Apple where hangs the Forgotten 
Scythe ; Iduna's Apples, and the Apples which Loki 
found in the Wood ; ^ and a great many more I have 
on my list, too numerous to mention, — all of them 
good. As Bodaeus exclaims, referring to the culti- 
vated kinds, and adapting Virgil to his case, so I, 
adapting Bodaeus, — 

" Not if I had a hundred tongues, a hundred mouths, 
An iron voice, could I describe all the forms 
And reckon up all the names of these ivild apples.^* 

■ THE LAST GLEANING. 

By the middle of November the wild apples have 
lost some of their brilliancy, and have chiefly fallen. 
A great part are decayed on the ground, and the 
sound ones are more palatable than before. The 
note of the chickadee sounds now more distinct, as 
you wander amid the old trees, and the autumnal 
dandelion is half-closed and tearful. But still, if you 
are a skilful gleaner, you may get many a pocket-full 
even of grafted fruit, long after apples are supposed 
to be gone out-of-doors. I know a Blue-Pearmain 
tree, growing within the edge of a swamp, almost as 
good as wild. You would not suppose that there was 
any fruit left there, on the first survey, but you must 
look according to system. Those which lie exposed 
are quite brown and rotten now, or perchance a few 
still show one blooming cheek here and there amid 
the wet leaves. Nevertheless, with experienced eyes, 
1 The tramp's comfort. ^ See p. 172. 



WILD APPLES. 193 

I explore amid the bare alders and the huckleberry- 
bushes and the withered sedge, and in the crevices of 
the rocks, which are full of leaves, and pry under the 
fallen and decaying ferns, which, with apple and 
alder leaves, thickly strew the ground. For I know 
that they lie concealed, fallen into hollows long since 
and covered up by the leaves of the tree itself, — a 
proper kind of packing. From these lurking-places, 
anywhere within the circumference of the tree, I 
draw forth the fruit, all wet and glossy, maybe nib- 
bled by rabbits and hollowed out by crickets and 
perhaps with a leaf or two cemented to it (as Curzon ^ 
an old manuscript from a monastery's mouldy cellar), 
but still with a rich bloom on it, and at least as ripe 
and well kept, if not better than those in barrels, 
more crisp and lively than they. If these resources 
fail to yield anything, I have learned to look between 
the bases of the suckers which spring thickly from 
some horizontal limb, for now and then one lodges 
there, or in the very midst of an alder-clump, where 
they are covered by leaves, safe from cows which may 
have smelled them out. If I am sharp-set, for I do 
not refuse the Blue-Pearmain, I fill my pockets on 
each side ; and as I retrace my steps in the frosty 
eve, being perhaps four or five miles from home, I 
eat one first from this side, and then from that, to 
keep my balance. 

I learn from Topsell's Gesner, whose authority ap- 
pears to be Albertus, that the following is the way in 
which the hedoehos: collects and carries home his 
apples. He says : " His meat is apples, worms, or 

1 Robert Curzon was a traveller who searched for old manu- 
scripts in the monasteries of the Levant. See his book, An- 
cient Monasteries of the East. 



194 HENRY DAVID THOREAU, 

grapes : when he findeth apples or grapes on the earth, 
he roUeth himself upon them, until he have filled all 
his prickles, and then carrieth them home to his den, 
never bearing above one in his mouth ; and if it for- 
tune that one of them fall off by the way, he likewise 
shaketh off all the residue, and walloweth upon them 
afresh, until they be all settled upon his back again. 
So, forth he goeth, making a noise like a cart-wheel ; 
and if he have any young ones in his nest, they pull 
off his load wherewithal he is loaded, eating thereof 
what they please, and laying up the residue for the 
time to come." 

THE " FROZEN-THAWED " APPLE. 

Toward the end of November, though some of the 
sound ones are yet more mellow and perhaps more 
edible, they have generally, like the leaves, lost their 
beauty, and are beginning to freeze. It is finger-cold, 
and prudent farmers get in their barrelled apples, and 
bring you the apples and cider which they have en- 
gaged ; for it is time to put them into the cellar. 
Perhaps a few on the ground show their red cheeks 
above the early snow, and occasionally some even 
preserve their color and soundness under the snow 
throughout the winter. But generally at the begin- 
ning of the winter they freeze hard, and soon, though 
undecayed, acquire the color of a baked apple. 

Before the end of December, generally, they ex- 
perience their first thawing. Those which a month 
ago were sour, crabbed, and quite unpalatable to the 
civilized taste, such at least as were frozen while 
sound, let a warmer sun come to thaw them, for they 
are extremely sensitive to its rays, are found to be 
filled with a rich, sweet cider, better than any bottled 



WILD APPLES. 195 

cider that I know of, and with which I am better 
acquainted than with wine. All apples are good in 
this state, and your jaws are the cider-press. Others, 
which have more substance, are a sweet and luscious 
food, — in my opinion of more worth than the pine- 
apples which are imported from the West Indies. 
Those which lately even I tasted only to repent of it, 
— for I am semi-civilized, — which the farmer will- 
ingly left on the tree, I am now glad to find have the 
property of hanging on like the leaves of the young- 
oaks. It is a way to keep cider sweet without boil- 
ing. Let the frost come to freeze them first, solid as 
stones, and then the rain or a warm winter day to 
thaw them, and they will seem to have borrowed a 
flavor from heaven through the medium of the air in 
which they hang. Or perchance you find, when you 
get home, that those which rattled in your pocket 
have thawed, and the ice is turned to cider. But 
after the third or fourth freezing and thawing they 
will not be found so good. 

What are the imported half -ripe fruits of the torrid 
South to this fruit matured by the cold of the frigid 
North ? These are those crabbed apples with which 
I cheated my companion, and kept a smooth face that 
I might tempt him to eat. Now we both greedily fill 
our pockets with them, — bending to drink the cup 
and save our lappets from the overflowing juice, — 
and grow more social with their wine. Was there 
one that hung so high and sheltered by the tangled 
branches that our sticks could not dislodge it ? 

It is a fruit never carried to market, that I am 
aware of, — quite distinct from the apple of the 
markets, as from dried apple and cider, — and it is 
not every winter that produces it in perfection. 



196 HENRY DAVID THOREAU. 

The era of the Wild Apple will soon be past. It 
is a fruit which will probably become extinct in New 
England. You may still wander through old orchards 
of native fruit of great extent, which for the most 
part went to the cider-mill, now all gone to decay. I 
have heard of an orchard in a distant town, on the 
side of a hill, where the apples rolled down and lay 
four feet deep against a wall on the lower side, and 
this the owner cut down for fear they should be made 
into cider. Since the temperance reform and the 
general introduction of grafted fruit, no native apple- 
trees, such as I see everywhere in deserted pastures, 
and where the woods have grown up around them, are 
set out. I fear that he who walks over these fields a 
century hence will not know the pleasure of knocking 
oif wild apples. Ah, poor man, there are many plea- 
sures which he will not know ! Notwithstanding the 
prevalence of the Baldwin and the Porter, I doubt if 
so extensive orchards are set out to-day in my town as 
there were a century ago, when those vast straggling 
cider-orchards were planted, when men both ate and 
drank apples, when the pomace-heap was the only 
nursery, and trees cost nothing but the trouble of set- 
ting: them out. Men could afford then to stick a tree 
by every wall-side and let it take its chance. I see 
nobody planting trees to-day in such out-of-the-way 
places, along the lonely roads and lanes, and at the 
bottom of dells in the wood. Now that they have 
grafted trees, and pay a price for them, they collect 
them into a plat by their houses, and fence them in, 
— and the end of it all will be that we shall be com- 
pelled to look for our apples in a barrel. 

This is " The word of the Lord that came to Joel 
the son of Pethuel. 



WILD APPLES. 197 

" Hear this, ye old men, and give ear, all ye in- 
habitants of the land I Hath this been in your days, 
or even in the days of your fathers ? . . . 

" That which the palmer-worm hath left hath the 
locust eaten ; and that which the locust hath left hath 
the canker-worm eaten ; and that which the canker* 
worm hath left hath the caterpillar eaten. 

" Awake, ye drunkards, and weep ! and howl, all 
ye drinkers of wine, because of the new wine ! for it 
is cut off from your mouth. 

" For a nation is come up upon my land, strong, 
and without number, whose teeth are the teeth of a 
lion, and he hath the cheek-teeth of a great lion. 

" He hath laid my vine waste, and barked my fig- 
tree ; he hath made it clean bare, and cast it away ; 
the branches thereof are made white. . . . 

" Be ye ashamed, O ye husbandmen ! howl, O ye 
vine-dressers ! . . . 

" The vine is dried up, and the fig-tree languish- 
eth ; the pomegranate-tree, the palm-tree also, and the 
apple-tree, even all the trees of the field, are with- 
ered : because joy is withered away from the sons of 
men." ^ 

1 Joel, chapter i., verses 1-12. 



JOHN BOYLE O'REILLY. 



BIOGRAPHICAL SKETCH.^ 

John Boyle O'Reilly was born on June 28, 1844, in 
Dowth Castle, four miles above the town of Drogheda, Ire- 
land. His parents were cultured and talented. He inher- 
ited a good constitution, and was passionately fond of out- 
of-door sports. Among the boys of his neighborhood no one 
was more daring or skilful than the handsome, rosy-cheeked, 
curly-haired, dark-eyed John. At the age of eleven he left 
home to become an apprentice in the printing-office of the 
Drogheda Aligns, at a salary of two shillings and sixpence 
a week, which did not include board and lodging ; his salary 
was increased sixpence a week every year. 

After nearly four years of service the death of his em- 
ployer released him from the obligations of his apprentice- 
ship. In 1859 he went to Preston, England, the home of 
his uncle. Captain Watkinson, where he obtained a situation 
as an apprentice in the office of the Guardian. Three 
years later he graduated from the printer's case and became 
a reporter, having learned shorthand and otherwise equipped 
himself for the work of a journalist. In March, 1863, he 
obeyed a call from his father to return home to Ireland. 

He had become deeply imbued with the revolutionary 
principles then so freely adopted by patriotic Irishmen. It 

1 The information given in this brief sketch has been gleaned 
from the Life of John Boyle O'Reilly, by James Jeffrey Roche, 
published by the Cassell Publishing Company, of New York. 



200 JOHN BOYLE O'REILLY. 

was hoped that disaffection would be sowed in the ranks of 
the British army, of which more than thirty per cent were 
Irishmen. Accordingly in May, 1863, O'Reilly enlisted as 
a trooper in the Tenth Hussars, where he became a model 
soldier, quick to learn and punctual to obey orders. In 
February, 1866, he was arrested on the charge of " having 
at Dublin in January, 1866, come to the knowledge of an 
intended mutiny in Her Majesty's Forces in Ireland, and 
not giving information of said intended mutiny to his com- 
manding officer." On June 27th, of the same year, the day 
preceding his twenty-second birthday, his trial by court- 
martial began. On July 9, 1866, formal sentence of death 
was passed upon him. The same day the sentence was com- 
muted to life imprisonment, and afterwards to twenty years' 
penal servitude. For about fifteen months he was confined 
in the prisons of Mountjoy, Pentonville, Millbank, Chatham, 
Portsmouth, Dartmoor, and Portland. He suffered in- 
tensely from poor food, hard work, foul air, and inhuman 
jailers. He made two unsuccessful attempts to escape, for 
which he was severely punished by solitary confinement and 
a diet of bread and water. 

In October, 1867, he and sixty-two other political prison- 
ers were embarked on the Hougoumont for Australia. His 
popularity among the guards secured for him kindly treat- 
ment on the voyage. He arrived at Freemantle on the 
morning of January 10, 1868, and four weeks later was sent 
to Bunbury, thirty miles away, where he led the life of a 
convict among some of the most degraded of humankind — 
murderers, burglars, offenders of every grade and color of 
vice. But ill fortune instead of blighting had nourished in 
him the growth of the instincts of pure humanity. He soon 
won the respect of the officer over him, became of assistance 
in clerical work, and was appointed a " constable," or aid to 
an officer in charge of a working party. Not long after 
the following advertisement appeared in the Police Gazette 
of Western Australia : — 



BIOGRAPHICAL SKETCH. 201 

ABSCONDERS. 

20 — John B. O'Reilly, registered No. 9843, imperial convict; 
arrived in the colony per convict ship Hougoumont in 1868 ; sen- 
tenced to twenty years, 9th July, 1866. Description — Healthy 
appearance ; present age 25 years ; 5 feet 7^ inches high, black 
hair, brown eyes, oval visage, dark complexion : an Irishman. 
Absconded from Convict Road Party, Bunbury, on the 18th of 
February, 1869. 

O'Reilly had escaped through the Bush to the seashore, 
and after a disappointing delay and much suffering from 
hunger and thirst he was taken on board the Gazelle, a New 
Bedford whaler commanded by Captain Gifford. Two 
months later, in the harbor of Roderique, he escaped cap- 
ture through a well-planned ruse of his friend, Mr. Hatha- 
way, the third mate of the Gazelle. To avoid the danger 
of capture at St. Helena, the next port for the Gazelle, 
O'Reilly was reluctantly transferred, by Captain Gifford, on 
July 29th, to the Sapphire, of Boston, bound for Liverpool. 
After a short stay at Liverpool he embarked as third mate 
on the Bombay, and on November 23, 1869, landed at 
Philadelphia. His first act after landing was to present 
himself before the United States District Court and take out 
his first naturalization papers. He soon went to New York, 
where by the invitation of the Fenians he delivered a lecture 
to over two thousand persons at the Cooper Institute, on 
December 16, 1869. We next find him in Boston as clerk 
in the office of the Inman Line Steamship Company. After 
four or five weeks of satisfactory work he was discharged 
by orders received from the general office of the company in 
England, whither news had been sent that John Boyle 
O'Reilly, an escaped convict, was in the employment of the 
company at Boston. In the spring of 1870, after having 
lectured successfully in Boston, Providence, Salem, Law- 
rence, and other places, he was employed by Mr. Donahoe, 
the editor and proprietor of the Boston Pilot, as a reporter 



202 JOHN BOYLE O'REILLY, 

and general writer. In June, 1870, he took part in the in- 
vasion of Canada by the Fenians, as war-correspondent of 
the Pilot. His frank criticism of friends and foes at this 
time, and his wise and temperate reports to the Pilot at- 
tracted much attention. 

In February, 1876, O'Reilly, in his thirty-second year, 
became one of the proprietors of the Pilot. In 1879 he 
was President of the Papyrus Club, which he had helped to 
found, and also of the Boston Press Club. His literary 
work was not confined to the Pilot. He made many contri- 
butions, in both poetry and prose, to some of the leading 
magazines of the United States, and delivered a number of 
notable addresses on public occasions. A large part of his 
poems found a permanent form in the volumes entitled 
Songs of the Southern Seas, The Statues in the Block and 
In Bohemia. He also published Moondyne, a novel, and 
some other books. His reputation as an editor, lecturer, 
poet, and leader of the Irish-American people continued to 
increase until his death, which occurred on the night of 
August 9, 1890. 

On August 15, 1872, he was married to Miss Mary Mur- 
phy, of Charlestown, Massachusetts. They had four daugh- 
ters, all of whom survived their father. 

Of the many noble poems written by Mr. O'Reilly, the 
Pilgrim Fathers, read August 1, 1889, at the dedication of 
the national monument to the Pilgrim Fathers at Plymouth, 
Massachusetts, is described as the crowning work of his life 
as an American singer. This poem is given in full in the 
following pages. 



THE PILGRIM FATHERS. 

One righteous word for Law — the common will ; 

One living truth of Faith — God regnant still ; 

One primal test of Freedom — all combined ; 

One sacred Revolution — change of mind ; 

One trust unfailing for the night and need — • 5 

The tyrant-flower shall cast the freedom-seed. 

So held they firm, the Fathers aye to be, 
From home to Holland, Holland to the sea ; 
Pilgrims for manhood, in their little ship, 
Hope in each heart and prayer on every lip. 10 

They could not live by king-made codes and creeds ; 
They chose the path where every footstep bleeds. 
Protesting, not rebelling ; scorned and banned ; 
Through pains and prisons harried from the land ; 
Through double exile, — till at last they stand is 

Apart from all, — unique, unworldly, true, 
Selected grain to sow the earth anew ; 
A winnowed part, a saving remnant they ; 
Dreamers who work, adventurers who pray ! 

What vision led them? Can we test their prayers? 20 
Who knows they saw no, empire in the West ? 
The later Puritans sought land and gold, 
And all the treasures that the Spaniard told ; 
What line divides the Pilgrims from the rest ? 

We know them by the exile that was theirs ; 25 

Their justice, faith, and fortitude attest ; 



204 JOHN BOYLE O'REILLY. 

And those long years in Holland, when their band 

Sought humble living in a stranger's land. 

They saw their England covered with a weed 

Of flaunting lordship both in court and creed. 3o 

With helpless hands they watched the error grow, 

Pride on the top and impotence below ; 

Indulgent nobles, privileged and strong, 

A haughty crew to whom all rights belong ; 

The bishops arrogant, the courts impure, 35 

The rich conspirators against the poor ; 

The peasant scorned, the artisan despised ; 

The all-supporting workers lowest prized. 

They marked those evils deepen year by year : 

The pensions grow, the freeholds disappear, 

Till England meant but monarch, prelate, peer. 

At last the Conquest ! Now they know the word : 

The Saxon tenant and the Norman lord ! 

No longer Merrie England : now it meant 

The payers and the takers of the rent ; 45 

And rent exacted not from lands alone — 

All rights and hopes must centre in the throne : 

Law-tithes for prayer — their souls were not their own ! 

Then o'er the brim the bitter waters welled ; 

The mind protested and the soul rebelled. 50 

And yet, how deep the bowl, how slight the flow ! 

A few brave exiles from their country go ; 

A few strong souls whose rich affections cling, 

Though cursed by clerics, hunted by the king ; 

Their last sad vision on the Grimsby strand 55 

Their wives and children kneeling on the sand. 

Then twelve slow years in Holland — changing 
years — 



THE PILGRIM FATHERS. 205 

Strange ways of life — strange voices in their ears ; 

The growing children learning foreign speech ; 

And growing, too, within the heart of each 60 

A thought of further exile — of a home 

In some far land — a home for life and death 

By their hands built, in equity and faith. 

And then the preparation — the heart-beat 
Of wayfarers who may not rest their feet ; es 

Their pastor's blessing — the farewells of some 
Who stayed in Leyden. Then the sea's wide blue : 
"They sailed," writ one, "and as they sailed the}; 

knew 
That they were Pilgrims ! " 

On the wintry main 
God flings their lives as farmers scatter grain. to 

His breath propels the winged seed afloat ; 
His tempests swerve to spare the fragile boat ; 
Before his prompting terrors disappear ; 
He points the way while patient seamen steer ; 
Till port is reached, nor North, nor South, but 
HERE ! 75 

Here, where the shore was rugged as the waves, 

Where frozen nature dumb and leafless lay. 

And no rich meadows bade the Pilgrims stay, 

Was spread the symbol of the life that saves : 

To conquer first the outer things ; to make so 

Their own advantage, unallied, unbound ; 

Their blood the mortar, building from the ground ; 

Their cares the statutes, making all anew ; 

To learn to trust the many, not the few ; 

To bend the mind to discipline ; to break as 



206 JOHN BOYLE O'REILLY, 

The bonds of old convention, and forget 

The claims and barriers of class ; to face 

A desert land, a strange and hostile race, 

And conquer both to friendship by the debt 

That nature pays to justice, love, and toil. 90 

Here, on this rock, and on this sterile soil. 
Began the kingdom not of kings, but men : 
Began the making of the world again. 
Here centuries sank, and from the hither brink 
A new world reached and raised an old-world link, 95 
When English hands, by wider vision taught. 
Threw down the feudal bars the Normans brought. 
And here revived, in spite of sword and stake. 
Their ancient freedom of the Wapentake ! 
Here struck the seed — the Pilgrims' roofless town, 100 
W^here equal rights and equal bonds were set. 
Where all the people equal-f ranchised met ; 
Where doom was writ of privilege and crown ; 
Where human breath blew all the idols down ; 
Where crests were nought, where vulture flags were 
furled, 105 

And common men began to own the world ! 

All 23raise to others of the vanguard then ! 

To Spain, to France ; to Baltimore and Penn ; 

To Jesuit, Quaker, Puritan and Priest ; 

Their toil be crowned, their honors be increased ! no 

We slight no true devotion, steal no fame 

From other shrines to gild the Pilgrims' name. 

As time selects, we judge their treasures heaped ; 

Their deep foundations laid ; their harvests reaped; 

Their primal mode of liberty ; their rules n5 

Of civil right ; their churches, courts, and schools ; 



THE PILGRIM FATHERS. 207 

Their freedom's very secret here laid down, — 

The spring of government is the little town ! 

They knew that streams must follow to a spring ; 

And no stream flows from township to a king. 120 

Give praise to others, early-come or late, 

For love and labor on our ship of state ; 

But this must stand above all fame and zeal : 

The Pilgrim Fathers laid the ribs and keel. 

On their strong lines we base our social health, — 125 

The man — the home — the town — the commonwealth ! 

Unconscious builders ? Yea : the conscious fail I 

Design is impotent if Nature frown. 

No deathless pile has grown from intellect. 

Immortal things have God for architect, i30 

And men are but the granite he lays down. 

Unconscious ? Yea ! They thought it might avail 

To build a gloomy creed about their lives, 

To shut out all dissent ; but naught survives 

Of their poor structure ; and we know to-day 135 

Their mission was less pastoral than lay — 

More Nation-seed than Gospel-seed were they ! 

The faith was theirs : the time had other needs. 
The salt they bore must^weeten worldly deeds. 
There was a meaning in the very wind 140 

That blew them here, so few, so poor, so strong. 
To grapple concrete work, not abstract wrong. 
Their saintly Robinson was left behind 
To teach by gentle memory ; to shame 
The bigot spirit and the word of flame ; 145 

To write dear mercy in the Pilgrims' law ; 
To lead to that wide faith his soul foresaw, — 
That no rejected race in darkness delves ; 



208 JOHN BOYLE O'REILLY. 

There are no Gentiles, but they make themselves ; 
That men are one of blood and one of spirit ; i5o 

That one is as the whole, and all inherit ! 

On all the story of a life or race, 

The blessing of a good man leaves its trace. 

Their Pastor's word at Ley den here sufficed : 

" But follow me as I have followed Christ ! " 155 

And, " I believe there is more truth to come ! " 

O gentle soul, what future age shall sum 

The sweet incentive of thy tender word ! 

Thy sigh to hear of conquest by the sword ; 

" How happy to convert, and not to slay ! " leo 

When valiant Standish killed the chief at bay. 

To such as thee the fathers owe their fame ; 

The nation owes a temple to thy name. 

Thy teaching made the Pilgrims kindly, free, — 

All that the later Puritans should be. les 

Thy pious instinct marks their destiny. 

Thy love won more than force or arts adroit, — 

It writ and kept the deed with Massasoit ; 

It earned the welcome Samoset expressed ; 

It lived again in Eliot's loving breast ; no 

It filled the Compact which the Pilgrims signed — 

Immortal scroll ! the first where men combined 

From one deep lake of common blood to draw 

All rulers, rights, and potencies of law. 

When waves of ages have their motive spent 175 

Thy sermon preaches in this Monument, 
Where Virtue, Courage, Law, and Learning sit ; 
Calm Faith above them, grasping Holy Writ ; 
White hand upraised o'er beauteous, trusting eyes, 
And pleading finger pointing to the skies ! iso 



THE PILGRIM FATHERS. 209 

The past is theirs, the future ours ; and we 

Must learn and teach. Oh, may our record be 

Like theirs, a glory, symboUed in a stone. 

To speak as this speaks, of our labors done. 

They had no model ; but they left us one. iss 

Severe they were ; but let him cast the stone 

Who Christ's dear love dare measure with his own. 

Their strict professions were not cant nor pride. 

Who calls them narrow, let his soul be wide I 

Austere, exclusive — ay, but with their faults, i9o 

Their golden probity mankind exalts. 

They never lied in practice, peace, or strife ; 

They were no hypocrites ; their faith was clear ; 

They feared too much some sins men ought to fear : 

The lordly arrogance and avarice, ws 

And vain frivolity's besotting vice ; 

The stern enthusiasm of their life 

Impelled too far, and weighed poor nature down ; 

They missed God's smile, perhaps, to watch his frown. 

But he who digs for faults shall resurrect 200 

Their manly virtues born of self-respect. 

How sum their merits ? They were true and brave ; 

They broke no compact and they owned no slave. 

They had no servile order, no dumb throat ; 

They trusted first the universal vote ; 205 

The first were they to practice and instil 

The rule of law and not the rule of will ; 

They lived one noble test ; who would be freed 

Must give up all to follow duty's lead. 

They made no revolution based on blows, 210 

But taught one truth that all the planet knows, 

That all men think of, looking on a throne — 

The people may be trusted with their own ! 



210 JOHN BOYLE O'REILLY. 

In every land wherever might holds sway 

The Pilgrims' leaven is at work to-day. 215 

The Mayflower's cabin was the chosen womb 

Of light predestined for the nations' gloom. 

God grant that those who tend the sacred flame 

May worthy prove of their Forefathers' name. 

More light has come, — more dangers, too, perplex : 220 

New prides, new greeds, our high condition vex. 

The Fathers fled from feudal lords, and made. 

A freehold state ; may we not retrograde 

To lucre-lords and hierarchs of trade. 

May we, as they did, teach in court and school, 225 

There must be classes, but no class shall r^ile ; 

The sea is sweet, and rots not like the pool. 

Though vast the token of our future glory. 

Though tongue of man hath told not such a story, — 

Surpassing Plato's dream, More's phantasy, — still 

we 230 

Have no new principles to keep us free. 

As Nature works with changeless grain on grain, 

The truths the Fathers taught we need again. 

Depart from this, though we may crowd our shelves. 

With codes and precepts for each lapse and flaw, 235 

And patch our moral leaks with statute law, 

We cannot be protected from ourselves ! 

Still must we keep in every stroke and vote 

•The law of conscience that the Pilgrims wrote ; 

Our seal their secret : Liberty can be ; 240 

The State is freedom if the Town is free. 

The death of nations in their work began ; 

They sowed the seed of federated Man. 

Dead nations were but robber-holds ; and we 

The first battalion of Humanity ! 245 

All living nations, while our eagles shine, 



THE PILGRIM FATHERS. 211 

One after one, shall swing into our line ; 

Our freeborn heritage shall be the guide 

And bloodless order of their regicide ; 

The sea shall join, not limit ; mountains stand 250 

Dividing farm from farm, not land from land. 

O people's Voice ! when farthest thrones shall hear ; 
When teachers own ; when thoughtful rabbis know ; 
When artist minds in world-wide symbol show ; 
When serfs and soldiers their mute faces raise ; 255 
When priests on grand cathedral altars praise ; 
When pride and arrogance shall disappear, 
The Pilgrims' Vision is accomplished here ! 



JAMES RUSSELL LOWELL. 



BIOGRAPHICAL SKETCH. 

James Russell Lowell was born February 22, 1819, 
at Elmwood, Cambridge, Massachusetts, in the house where 
he died August 12, 1891. His early life was spent in Cam- 
bridge, and he has sketched many of the scenes in it very 
delightfully in Cambridge Thirty Years Ago, in his volume 
of Fireside Travels, as well as in his early poem, A71 Indian 
Summer Reverie. His father was a Congregationalist min- 
ister of Boston, and the family to which he belonged has had 
a strong representation in Massachusetts. His grandfather, 
John Lowell, was an eminent jurist, the Lowell Institute of 
Boston owes its endowment to John Lowell, a cousin of the 
poet, and the city of Lowell was named after Francis Cabot 
Lowell, an uncle, who was one of the first to begin the man- 
ufacturing of cotton in New England. 

Lowell was a student at Harvard, and was graduated in 
1838, when he gave a class poem, and in 1841 his first vol- 
ume of poems, A Year's Life, was published. His bent 
from the beginning was more decidedly literary than that of 
any contemporary American poet. That is to say, the his- 
tory and art of literature divided his interest with the pro- 
duction of literature, and he carries the unusual gift of rare 
critical power, joined to hearty, spontaneous creation. It 
may indeed be guessed that the keenness of judgment and 
incisiveness of wit which characterize his examination of lit- 
erature have sometimes interfered with his poetic power. 



214 JAMES RUSSELL LOWELL. 

and made him liable to question liis strt when he would 
rather have expressed it unchecked. In connection with 
Robert Carter, a litterateur who has lately died, he began, 
in 1843, the publication of The Flotieer, a Literarij and 
Critical Magazine, which lived a brilliant life of three 
months. A volume of poetry followed in 1844, and the 
next year he published Conversations on Some of the Old 
Foets, — a book which is now out of print, but interesting 
as marking the enthusiasm of a young scholar, treading a 
way then almost wholly neglected in America, and intimat- 
ing a line of thought and study in which he afterward made 
most noteworthy ventures. Another series of poems fol- 
lowed in 1848, and in the same year The Vision of Sir 
Launfal. Perhaps it was in reaction from the marked sen- 
timent of his poetry that he issued now a jeu d' esprit, A 
Fable for Critics, in which he hit off, with a rough and 
ready wit, the characteristics of the writers of the day, not 
forgetting himself in these lines : — 

" There is Lowell, who 's striving Parnassus to climb 
With a whole bale of isms tied together with rhyme ; 
He might get on alone, spite of brambles and boulders, 
But he can't with that bundle he has on his shoulders ; 
The top of the hill he will ne'er come nigh reaching 
Till he learns the distinction 'twixt singing and preaching ; 
His lyre has some chords that would ring pretty well, 
But he 'd rather by half make a drum of tlie shell, 
And rattle away till he 's old as Methusalem, 
At the head of a march to the last new Jerusalem." 

This, of course, is but a half serious portrait of himself, 
and it touches but a single feature ; others can say better 
that Lowell's ardent nature showed itself in the series of 
satirical poems which made him famous, The Biglow Fa- 
pers, written in a spirit of indignation and fine scorn, when 
the Mexican War was causing many Americans to blush 
with shame at the use of the country by a class for its own 
ignoble ends. The true patriotism which marked these and 



BIOGRAPHICAL SKETCH. 215 

other of his early poems burned with a steady glow in after 
years, and illumined poems of which we shall speak pres- 
ently. 

After a year and a half spent in travel, Lowell was ap- 
pointed in 1855 to the Belles Lettres professorship at Har- 
vard, previously held by Longfellow. When the Atlantic 
Montlily was estabhshed in 1857 he became its editor, and 
soon after relinquishing that post he assumed part editorship 
of the North AmeriGa7i Bevieiv. Li these two magazines, 
as also in Putnam's Monthly, he published poems, essays, 
and critical papers, which have been gathered into vol- 
umes. His prose writings, besides the volumes already 
mentioned, include two series of Among my Books, histori- 
cal and critical studies, chiefly in English literature ; and 
My Study Windows, including, with similar subjects, obser- 
vations of nature and contemporary life. During the war 
for the Union he published a second series of the Bigloiv 
Papers, in which, with the wit and fun of the earlier series, 
there was mingled a deeper strain of feeling and a larger 
tone of patriotism. The limitations of his style in these sa- 
tires forbade the fullest expression of his thought and emo- 
tion ; but afterward in a succession of poems, occasioned by 
the honors paid to student-soldiers in Cambridge, the death 
of Agassiz, and the celebration of national anniversaries 
during the years 1875 and 1876, he sang in loftier, more 
ardent strains. The interest which readers have in Lowell 
is still divided between his rich, abundant prose, and his 
thoughtful, often passionate verse. The sentiment of his 
early poetry, always humane, was greatly enriched by larger 
experience ; so that the themes which he chose for his later 
work demanded and received a broad treatment, full of 
sympathy with the most generous instincts of their time, 
and built upon historic foundations. 

In 1877 he went to Spain as Minister Plenipotentiary. 
In 1880 he was transferred to England as Minister Pleni- 
potentiary near the Court of St. James. His duties as 



216 JAMES RUSSELL LOWELL. 

American Minister did not prevent him from producing oc- 
casional writings, chiefly in connection with public events. 
Notable among these are his address at the unveiling of a 
statue of Fielding, and his address on Democracy. 

Mr. Lowell returned to the United States in 1885, and 
was not afterward engaged in public affairs, but passed the 
rest of his life quietly in his Cambridge home, prevented 
by failing health from doing much literary work. He made 
a collection of his later poems in 1888, under the title 
Heartsease and Rue, and carefully revised his complete 
works, published in ten volumes in 1890. 



BOOKS AND LIBRARIES. 

AN ADDRESS GIVEN AT THE OPENING OF THE FREE PUB- 
LIC LIBRARY IN CHELSEA, MASS., 22 DECEMBER, 1885. 

A FEW years ago my friend, Mr. Alexander Ire- 
land, published a very interesting volume whicli he 
called The Book -Lovers Enchiridion, the hand- 
book,i that is to say, of those who love books. It 
was made up of extracts from the writings of a great 
variety of distinguished men, ancient and modern, in 
praise of books. It was a chorus of many voices in 
many tongues, a hymn of gratitude and praise, full 
of such piety and fervor as can be paralleled only in 
songs dedicated to the supreme Power, the supreme 
Wisdom, and the supreme Love. Nay, there is a glow 
of enthusiasm and sincerity in it which is often pain- 
fully wanting in those other too commonly mechani- 
cal compositions. We feel at once that here it is 
out of the fulness of the heart, yes, and of the head 
too, that the mouth speaketh. Here was none of that 
compulsory commonplace which is wont to charac- 
terize those " testimonials of celebrated authors," by 
means of which publishers sometimes strive to linger 
out the passage of a hopeless book toward its requi- 
escat 2 in oblivion. These utterances which Mr. Ire- 

1 Handbook is a translation of the Greek word enchiridion. 

2 It was once more common than now to place upon tomb- 
stones the Latin words Requiescat in pace: May he rest in 
peace. 



218 JAMES RUSSELL LOWELL. 

land has gathered lovingly together are stamped with 
that spontaneousness which is the mint-mark of all 
sterling speech. It is true that they are mostly, as 
is only natural, the utterances of literary men, and 
there is a well-founded proverbial distrust of herring 
that bear only the brand of the packer, and not that 
of the sworn inspector. But to this objection a cynic 
might answer with the question, " Are authors so 
prone, then, to praise the works of other people that 
we are to doubt them when they do it unasked ? " 
Perhaps the wisest thing I could have done to-night 
would have been to put upon the stand some of the 
more weighty of this cloud of v/itnesses. But since 
your invitation implied that I should myself say 
something, I will endeavor to set before you a few of 
the commonplaces of the occasion, as they may be 
modified by passing through my own mind, or by hav- 
ing made themselves felt in my own experience. 

The greater part of Mr. Ireland's witnesses testify 
to the comfort and consolation they owe to books, to 
the refuge they have found in them from sorrow or 
misfortune, to their friendship, never estranged and 
outliving all others. This testimony they volunteered. 
Had they been asked, they would have borne evi- 
dence as willingly to the higher and more general uses 
of books in their service to the commonwealth, as well 
as to the indi\ddual man. Consider, for example, 
how a single page of Burke may emancipate the 
young student of politics from narrow views and 
merely contemporaneous judgments. ^ Our English 
ancestors, with that common-sense which is one of the 

1 An interesting reference to Burke as a political thinker will 
be found in Mr. Lowell's paper, The Place of the Independent in 
Politics, in his volume of Political Essays. 



BOOKS AND LIBRARIES. 219 

most useful, though not one of the most engaging, 
properties of the race, made a rhyming proverb, which 
says that — 

" When land and goods are gone and spent 
Then learning is most excellent ; " 

and this is true so far as it goes, though it goes per- 
haps hardly far enough. The law also calls only the 
earth and what is immovably attached to it real ^ 
property, but I am of opinion that those only are real 
possessions which abide with a man after he has been 
stripped of those others falsely so called, and which 
alone save him from seeming and from being the mis- 
erable forked radish to which the bitter scorn of Lear 
degraded every child of Adam.^ The riches of schol- 
arship, the benignities of literature, defy fortune and 
outlive calamity. They are beyond the reach of thief 
or moth or rust. As they cannot be inherited, so 
they cannot be alienated. But they may be shared, 
they may be distributed, and it is the object and office 
of a free public library to perform these beneficent 
functions. 

" Books," says Wordsworth, " are a real world," ^ 
and he was thinking, doubtless, of such books as are 
not merely the triumphs of pure intellect, however 
supreme, but of those in which intellect infused with 
the sense of beauty aims rather to produce delight 
than conviction, or, if conviction, then through intui- 
tion rather than formal logic, and, leaving what Donne 
wisely calls — 

^ What is personal property or estate, as distinguished from 
real ? 

2 See King Lear, Act III. sc. 4 ; but see King Henry IV.y 
Part IL, Act III. sc. 2. 

^ In what poem ? 



220 JAMES RUSSELL LOWELL. 

" Uncoucerning things, matters of fact," ^ 
to science and the understanding, seeks to give ideal 
expression to those abiding realities of the spiritual 
world for which the outward and visible world serves 
at best but as the husk and symbol. Am I wrong in 
using the word realities ? wrong in insisting on the 
distinction between the real and the actual ? in assum- 
ing for the ideal an existence as absolute and self- 
subsistent as that which appeals to our senses, nay, 
so often cheats them, in the matter of fact ? How 
very small a part of the world we truly live in is 
represented by what speaks to us through the senses 
when compared with that vast realm of the mind 
which is peopled by memory and imagination, and 
with such shining inhabitants ! These walls, these 
faces, what are they in comparison with the countless 
images, the innumerable population which every one 
of us can summon up to the tiny show-box of the 
brain, in material breadth scarce a span, yet infinite 
as space and time ? and in what, I pray, are those we 
gravely call historical characters, of which each new 
historian strains his neck to o:et a new and different 
view, in any sense more real than the personages of 
fiction ? Do not serious and earnest men discuss 

1 A line in the poem Of the Progress of the Soul. The passage 
should be read in full. 

" We see in authors, too stiff to recant, 
A hundred controversies of an ant ; 
And yet one watches, starves, freezes, and sweats, 
To know but catechisms and alphabets 
Of uncoucerning things, matters of fact, 
How others on our stage their parts did act, 
Wliat Ciesar did, yea, and what Cicero said : 
Wliy grass is green, or why oiir blood is red, 
Are mysteries which none have reached unto ; 
In this low form, poor soul, what wilt thou do ? 
Oh ! when wilt thou shake off this pedantry, 
Of being taught by sense and fantasy ? " 



BOOKS AND LIBRARIES. 221 

Hamlet as they would Cromwell or Lincoln? Does 
Caesar, does Alaric, liold existence by any other or 
stronger tenure than the Christian of Bunyan, or the 
Don Quixote o£ Cervantes, or the Antigone of Sopho- 
cles ? Is not the history which is luminous because 
of an indwelling and perennial truth to nature, be- 
cause of that light which never was on sea or land,^ 
really more true, in the highest sense, than many a 
weary chronicle with names and date and place in 
which " an Amu rath to Amurath succeeds " ? Do we 
know as much of any authentic Danish prince as of 
Hamlet ? 

But to come back a little nearer to Chelsea and the 
occasion that has called us togethei-. The founders 
of New England, if sometimes, when they found it 
needful, an impracticable, were always a practical 
people. Their first care, no doubt, was for an ade- 
quate supply of powder, and they encouraged the 
manufacture of musket bullets by enacting that they 
should pass as currency at a farthing each, — a coin- 
age nearer to its nominal value and not heavier than 
some with which we are familiar. Their second care 
was that " good learning should not perish from among 
us," and to this end they at once established the 
Grammar (Latin) School^ in Boston, and soon after 
the college at Cambridge. The nucleus of this was, 
as you all know, the bequest in money by John Har- 
vard. Hardly less important, however, was the legacy 
of his library, a collection of good books, inconsider- 

^ See Wordsworth's poem, Elegiac Stanzas suggested by a 
Picture of Peele Castle in a Storm. 

^ An interesting account of this school may be read in The 
Oldest School in America, containing a notable historical address 
by Phillips Brooks. 



222 JAMES RUSSELL LOWELL. 

able measured by the standard of to-day, but very 
considerable then as the possession of a private per- 
son. From that little acorn what an oak has sprung, 
and from its acorns again what a vocal forest, as old 
Howell would have called it! — old Howell, whom I 
love to cite, because his name gave their title to the 
Essays of Mia,^ and is borne with slight variation 
by one of the most delightful of modern authors. It 
was, in my judgment, those two foundations, more 
than anything else, which gave to New England char- 
acter its bent, and to Boston that literary supremacy 
which, I am told, she is in danger of losing, but which 
she will not lose till she and all the world lose Holmes. 
The opening of a free public library,^ then, is a 
most important event in the history of any town. A 
college training is an excellent thing ; but, after all, 
the better part of every man's education is that which 
he gives himself, and it is for this that a good library 
should furnish the opportunity and the means. I have 
sometimes thought that our public schools undertook 
to teach too much, and that the older system,' which 
taught merely the three R's, and taught them well, 
leaving natural selection to decide who should go 
farther, was the better. However this may be, all 

1 Mr. Lowell here conjectures that Lamb, who was at home 
in quamt English literature, adopted his signature of Elia from 
the Epistolce Ho-Eliance of James Howell, a writer of the former 
half of the seventeenth century ; but Lamb himself, in a letter 
to his publishers, states that he took the name of Elia, which he 
tells them to pronounce Ellia, from a former fellow-clerk of his 
at the India House, an Italian named Elia. 

2 It would be an interesting study for any one to trace the 
rise and growth of public libraries in the United States. Abun- 
dant material will be found in a Special Report issued by the 
Bureau of Education at Washington in 1876. 



BOOKS AND LIBRARIES. 223 

that is primarily needful in order to use a library is 
the ability to read. I say primarily, for there must 
also be the inclination, and, after that, some guidance 
in reading well. Formerly the duty of a librarian 
was considered too much that of a watch-dog, to keep 
people as much as possible away from the books, and 
to hand these over to his successor as little worn by 
use as he could. Librarians now, it is pleasant to see, 
have a different notion of their trust, and are in the 
habit of preparing, for the direction of the inexperi- 
enced, lists of such books as they think best worth 
reading. Cataloguing has also, thanks in great mea- 
sure to American librarians, become a science, and 
catalogues, ceasing to be labyrinths without a clew, 
are furnished with finger-posts at every turn. Sub- 
ject catalogues again save the beginner a vast deal of 
time and trouble by supplying him for nothing with 
one at least of the results of thorough scholarship, the 
knowing where to look for what he wants. I do not 
mean by this that there is or can be any short cut to 
learning, but that there may be, and is, such a short 
cut to information that will make learning more easily 
accessible. 

But have you ever rightly considered what the mere 
ability to read means ? That it is the key which ad- 
mits us to the whole world of thought and fancy and 
imagination ? to the company of saint and sage, of the 
wisest and the wittiest at their wisest and wittiest mo- 
ment? That it enables us to see with the keenest 
eyes, hear with the finest ears, and listen to the sweet- 
est voices of all time ? More than that, it annihilates 
time and space for us; it revives for us without a 
miracle the Age of Wonder, endowing us with the 
shoes of swiftness and the cap of darkness, so that we 



224 JAMES RUSSELL LOWELL. 

walk invisible like Fern-seed,^ and witness unharmed 
the plague ^ at Athens or Florence or London ; ac- 
company Caesar on his marches, or look in on Catiline 
in council with his fellow-conspirators, or Guy Fawkes 
in the cellar of St. Stephen's. We often hear of peo- 
ple who will descend to any servility, submit to any 
insult, for the sake of getting themselves or their chil- 
dren into what is euphemistically called good society. 
Did it ever occur to them that there is a select society 
of all the centuries to which they and theirs can be 
admitted for the asking, a society, too, which will not 
involve them in ruinous expense, and still more ruin- 
ous waste of time and health and faculties ? 

Southey tells us that, in his walk one stormy day, 
he met an old woman, to whom, by way of greeting, 
he made the rather obvious remark that it was dread- 
ful weather. She answered, philosophically, that, in 
her opinion, " any weather was better than none ! " 
I should be half inclined to say that any reading was 
better than none, allaying the crudeness of the state- 
ment by the Yankee proverb, which tells us that, 
though " all deacons are good, there 's odds in dea- 
cons." Among books, certainly, there is much variety 
of company, ranging from the best to the worst, from 
Plato to Zola ; and the first lesson in reading well is 
that which teaches us to distinguish between litera- 
ture and merely printed matter. The choice lies 
wholly with ourselves. We have the key put into 
our hands; shall we unlock the pantry or the ora- 

^ Any good collection of fairy tales will enable one to re- 
count the stories which make use of the shoes, the cap, and the 
fern-seed. 

^ Thucydides describes the plague at Athens ; Defoe, the 
plague at London. 



BOOKS AND LIBRARIES, 225 

tory? There is a Wallachian legend which, like 
most of the figments of popular fancy, has a moral in 
it. One Bakala, a good-for-nothing kind of fellow in 
his way, having had the luck to offer a sacrifice espe- 
cially well pleasing to God, is taken up into heaven. 
He finds the Almighty sitting in something like the 
best room of a Wallachian peasant's cottage — there 
is always a profound pathos in the homeliness of the 
popular imagination, forced, like the princess in the 
fairy tale, to weave its semblance of gold tissue out 
of straw. On being asked what reward he desires 
for the good service he has done, Bakala, who had 
always passionately longed to be the owner of a bag- 
pipe, seeing a half worn-out one lying among some 
rubbish in a corner of the room, begs eagerly that it 
may be bestowed on him. The Lord, with a smile of 
pity at the meanness of his choice, grants him his 
boon, and Bakala goes back to earth delighted with 
his prize. With an infinite possibility within his 
reach, with the choice of wisdom, of power, of beauty 
at his tongue's end, he asked according to his kind, 
and his sordid wish is answered with a gift as sordid. 
Yes, there is a choice in books as in friends, and the 
mind sinks or rises to the level of its habitual society, 
is subdued, as Shakespeare says of the dyer's hand, 
to what it works in.^ Cato's advice, cum bonis am- 
hula (consort with the good), is quite as true if we 
extend it to books, for they, too, insensibly give away 
their own nature to the mind that converses with 
them. They either beckon upwards or drag down. 
Du gleichst dem Geist den du hegreifat? says the 
World Spirit to Faust, and this is true of the ascend- 

^ Sonnet cxi. 

2 Thou'rt like the Spirit whom thou conceivest. 



226 JAMES RUSSELL LOWELL. 

ing no less than of the descending scale. Every book 
we read may be made a round in the ever-lengthen- 
ing ladder by which we climb to knowledge, and to 
that temperance and serenity of mind which, as it is 
the ripest fruit of Wisdom, is also the sweetest. But 
this can only be if we read such books as make us 
think, and read them in such a way as helps them to 
do so, that is, by endeavoring to judge them, and thus 
to make them an exercise rather than a relaxation of 
the mind. Desultory reading, except as conscious 
pastime, hebetates the brain and slackens the bow- 
string of Will. It communicates as little intelligence 
as the messages that run along the telegraph wire to 
the birds that perch on it. Few men learn the high- 
est use of books. After lifelong study many a man 
discovers too late that to have had the philosopher's 
stone availed nothing without the philosopher to use 
it. Many a scholarly life, stretched like a talking 
wire to bring the wisdom of antiquity into communion 
with the present, can at last yield us no better news 
that the true accent of a Greek verse, or the transla- 
tion of some filthy nothing scrawled on the walls of 
a brothel by some Pompeian idler. And it is cer- 
tainly true that the material of thought reacts upon 
the thought itself. Shakespeare himself would have 
been commonplace had he been paddocked in a thinly- 
shaven vocabulary, and Phidias, had he worked in 
wax, only a more inspired Mrs. Jarley. A man is 
known, says the proverb, by the company he keeps, 
and not only so, but made by it. Milton makes his 
fallen angels grow small to enter the infernal council 
room,^ but the soul, which God meant to be the spa- 
cious chamber where high thoughts and generous aspi- 
1 See Paradise Lout, Book I. lines 775-798. 



BOOKS AND LIBRARIES. 227 

rations might commune together, shrinks and narrows 
itself to the measure of the meaner company that is 
wont to gather there, hatching conspiracies against 
our better selves. We are apt to wonder at the 
scholarship of the men of three centuries ago, and at 
a certain dignity of phrase that characterizes them. 
They were scholars because they did not read so many 
things as we. They had fewer books, but these were 
of the best. Their speech was noble because they 
lunched with Plutarch and supped with Plato. We 
spend as much time over print as they did, but in- 
stead of communing with the choice thoughts of 
choice spirits, and unconsciously acquiring the grand 
manner of that supreme society, we diligently inform 
ourselves, and cover the continent with a cobweb of 
telegraphs to inform us, of such inspiring facts as 
that a horse belonging to Mr. Smith ran away on 
Wednesday, seriously damaging a valuable carryall ; 
that a son of Mr. Brown swallowed a hickory nut 
on Thursday ; and that a gravel bank caved in and 
buried Mr. Eobinson alive on Friday. Alas, it is we 
ourselves that are getting buried alive under this 
avalanche of earthy impertinences! It is we who, 
while we might each in his humble way be helping 
our fellows into the right path, or adding one block 
to the climbing spire of a fine soul, are willing to 
become mere sponges saturated from the stagnant 
goose-pond of village gossip. This is the kind of 
news we compass the globe to catch, fresh from Bung- 
town Centre, when we might have it fresh from 
heaven by the electric lines of poet or prophet ! ^ It is 

^ It might not be uninstructive for one to make such compu- 
tations as these : How much time does it take to read my cus- 
tomary local newspaper ? What is the shortest time I can give 



228 JAMES RUSSELL LOWELL. 

bad enough that we should be compelled to know so 
many nothings, but it is downright intolerable that 
we must wash so many barrow-loads of gravel to find 
a grain of mica after all. And then to be told that 
the ability to read makes us all shareholdefs in the 
Bonanza Mine of Universal Intelligence ! 

One is sometimes asked by young people to recom- 
mend a course of reading. My advice would be that 
they should confine themselves to the supreme books 
in whatever literature, or still better to choose some 
one great author, and make themselves thoroughly 
familiar with him. For, as all roads lead to Rome, 
so do they likewise lead away from it, and you will 
find that, in order to understand perfectly and weigh 
exactly any vital piece of literature, you will be 
gradually and pleasantly persuaded to excursions and 
explorations of which you little dreamed when you 
began, and will find yourselves scholars before you are 
aware. For remember that there is nothing less 
profitable than scholarship for the mere sake of 
scholarship, nor anything more wearisome in the at- 
tainment. But the moment you have a definite aim, 
attention is quickened, the mother of memory, and 
all that you acquire groups and arranges itself in an 
order that is lucid, because everywhere and always it 
is in intelligent relation to a central object of con- 
stant and growing interest. This method also forces 
upon us the necessity of thinking, which is, after all, 

to it and get the really important things out of it ? How many 
numbers of my newspaper would correspond in time of reading 
with Shakespeare's Tempest ? How much should I remember of 
the papers a month afterward ? how much of The Tempest ? But 
newspapers are not to be despised ; only we are to study econ- 
omy in the using of them. 



BOOKS AND LIBRARIES. 229 

the highest result of all education. For what we 
want is not learning, but knowledge ; that is, the 
power to make learning answer its true end as a 
quickener of intelligence and a widener of our intel- 
lectual sympathies. I do not mean to say that every 
one is fitted by nature or inclination for a definite 
course of study, or indeed for serious study in any 
sense. I am quite willing that these should " browse 
in a library," as Dr. Johnson called it, to their hearts' 
content. It is, perhaps, the only way in which time 
may be profitably wasted. But desultory reading 
will not make a '^ full man," as Bacon understood it, 
of one who has not Johnson's memory, his power of 
assimilation, and, above all, his comprehensive view of 
the relations of things. " Read not," says Lord Bacon 
in his Essay of Studies,^ " to contradict and confute ; 
nor to believe and take for granted ; nor to find talk 
and discourse ; but to weigh and consider. Some books 
are to be tasted, others to be swallowed, and some 
few to be chewed and digested ; that is, some books 
are to be read only in parts ; others to be read, but 
not curiously [carefully], and some few to be read 
wholly and with diligence and attention. Some hooks 
also may he read hy deputy T This is weighty and 
well said, and I would call your attention especially 
to the wise words with which the passage closes. The 
best books are not always those which lend themselves 
to discussion and comment, but those (like Mon- 
taigne's Essays) which discuss and comment our- 
selves. 

I have been speaking of such books as should be 

^ It is in this essay that the reference to the " full man " 
occurs, and as the essay is not long, it would be a good one to 
commit to memory. 



230 JAMES RUSSELL LOWELL. 

chosen for profitable reading. A public library, of 
course, must be far wider in its scope. It should con- 
tain something for all tastes, as well as the material 
for a thorough grounding in all branches of know- 
ledge. It should be rich in books of reference, in 
encyclopaedias,^ where one may learn without cost of 
research what things are generally known. For it is 
far more useful to know these than to know those that 
are 7iot generally known. Not to know them is the 
defect of those half-trained and therefore hasty men 
who find a mare's nest on every branch of the tree of 
knowledge. A library should contain ample stores of 
history, which, if it do not always deserve the pomp- 
ous title which Bolingbroke gave it, of philosophy 
teaching by example,^ certainly teaches many things 
profitable for us to know and lay to heart ; teaches, 
among other things, how much of the present is still 
held in mortmain by the past ; teaches that, if there 
be no controlling purpose, there is, at least, a sternly 
logical sequence in human affairs, and that chance has 
but a trifling dominion over them ; teaches why things 
are and must be so and not otherwise, and that, of all 
hopeless contests, the most hopeless is that which fools 
are most eager to challenge, — with the Nature ot 
Things ; teaches, perhaps more than anything else, 
the value of personal character as a chief factor in 
what used to be called destiny, for that cause is strong 

^ A capital subject for discussion would be on the compara- 
tive merits of the many encyclopaedias to be found in a good 
public library ; not to determine which was the best, but what 
was the characteristic of each. 

2 There is another suggestive definition of history made by 
the English historian E. A. Freeman, and used as a motto on 
the title-page of the various Johns Hopkins University Studies in 
Historical and Political Science. 



BOOKS AND LIBRARIES. 231 

which has not a multitude but one stroug man behind 
it. History is, indeed, mainly the biography of a few 
imperial men, and forces home upon us the useful 
lesson how infinitesimally important our own private 
affairs are to the universe in general. History is 
clarified experience, and yet how little do men profit 
by it ; nay, how should we expect it of those who so 
seldom are taught anything by their own ! Delusions, 
especially economical delusions, seem the only things 
that have any chance of an earthly immortality. I 
would have plenty of biography. It is no insignificant 
fact that eminent men have always loved their Plu- 
tarch, since example, whether for emulation or avoid- 
ance, is never so poignant as when presented to us in 
a striking personality. Autobiographies are also in- 
structive reading to the student of human nature, 
though generally written, by men who are more inter- 
esting to themselves than to their fellow-men. I have 
been told that Emerson and George Eliot agreed in 
thinking Rousseau's Confessions the most interesting 
book they had ever read. 

A public library should also have many and full 
shelves of political economy, for the dismal science, 
as Carlyle called it, if it prove nothing else, will go 
far towards proving that theory is the bird in the 
bush, though she sing more sweetly than the night- 
ingale, and that the millennium will not hasten its 
coming in deference to the most convincing string of 
resolutions that were ever unanimously adopted in 
public meeting. It likewise induces in us a profound 
and wholesome distrust of social panaceas. 

I would have a public library abundant in transla- 
tions of the best books in all languages, for, though 
no work of genius can be adequately translated, be- 



232 JAMES RUSSELL LOWELL. 

cause every word of it is permeated with what Milton 
calls " the precious life-blood of a master spirit " which 
cannot be transfused into the veins of the best trans- 
lation, yet some acquaintance with foreign and ancient 
literatures has the liberalizing effect of foreign travel.^ 
He who travels by translation travels more hastily 
and superficially, but brings home something that is 
worth having, nevertheless. Translations properly 
used, by shortening the labor of acquisition, add as 
many years to our lives as they subtract from the pro- 
cesses of our education. Looked at from any but the 
aesthetic point of view, translations retain whatever 
property was in their originals to enlarge, liberalize, 
and refine the mind. At the same time I would have 
also the originals of these translated books, as a temp- 
tation to the study of languages, which has a special 
use and importance of its own in teaching us to under- 
stand the niceties of our mother-tongue. The prac- 
tice of translation, by making us deliberate in the 
choice of the best equivalent of the foreign word in 
our own language, has likewise the advantage of con- 
tinually schooling us in one of the main elements of a 
good style, — precision ; and precision of thought is 
not only exemplified by precision of language, but is 
largely dependent on the habit of it. 

In such a library the sciences should be fully repre- 
sented, that men may at least learn to know in what 
a marvellous museum they live, what a wonder-worker 
is giving them an exhibition daily for nothing. Nor 
let Art be forgotten in all its many forms, not as the 
antithesis of Science, but as her elder or fairer sister, 

1 Emerson, in his essay entitled Books, in the volume Society 
and Solitude, has something to say about translations, and his 
remark often is quoted. 



BOOKS AND LIBRARIES, 233 

whom we love all tlie more that her usefulness cannot 
be demonstrated in dollars and cents. I should be 
thankful if every day-laborer among us could have 
his mind illumined, as those of Athens and of Flor- 
ence had, with some image of what is best in archi- 
tecture, painting, and sculpture, to train his crude 
perceptions and perhaps call out latent faculties. I 
should like to see the works of Ruskin within the 
reach of every artisan among us. For I hope some 
day that the delicacy of touch and accuracy of eye 
that have made our mechanics in some departments 
the best in the world, may give us the same supremacy 
in works of wider range and more purely ideal scope. 

Voyages and travels I would also have, good store, 
especially the earlier, when the world was fresh and 
unhackneyed and men saw things invisible to the 
modern eye. They are fast-sailing ships to waft away 
from present trouble to the Fortunate Isles. 

To wash down the drier morsels that every library 
must necessarily offer at its board, let there be plenty 
of imaginative literature, and let its range be not 
too narrow to stretch from Dante to the elder Dumas. 
The world of the imagination is not the world of ab- 
straction and nonentity, as some conceive, but a world 
formed out of chaos by a sense of the beauty that is 
in man and the earth on which he dwells. It is the 
realm of Might-be, our haven of refuge from the short- 
comings and disillusions of life. It is, to quote Spen- 
ser, who knew it well, — 

" The world's sweet inn from care and wearisome turmoil." 

Do we believe, then, that God gave us in mockery 
this splendid faculty of sympathy with things that are 



234 JAMES RUSSELL LOWELL. 

a joy forever ? ^ For my part, I believe that the love 
and study of works of imagination is of practical 
utility in a country so profoundly material (or, as we 
like to call it, practical) in its leading tendencies as 
ours. The hunger after purely intellectual delights, 
the content with ideal possessions, cannot but be good 
for us in maintaining a wholesome balance of the 
character and of the faculties. I for one shall never 
be persuaded that Shakespeare left a less useful leg- 
acy to his countrymen than Watt. We hold all the 
deepest, all the highest satisfactions of life as tenants 
of imagination. Nature will keep up the supply of 
what are called hard-headed people without our help, 
and, if it come to that, there are other as good uses 
for heads as at the end of battering rams. 

I know that there are many excellent people who 
object to the reading of novels as a waste of time, if 
not as otherwise harmful. But I think they are try- 
ing to outwit nature, who is sure to prove cunninger 
than they. Look at children. One boy shall want a 
chest of tools, and one a book, and of those who want 
books one shall ask for a botany, another for a ro- 
mance. They will be sure to get what they want, 
and we are doing a grave wrong to their morals by 
driving them to do things on the sly, to steal that 
food which their constitution craves and which is 
wholesome for them, instead of having it freely and 
frankly given them as the wisest possible diet. If 
we cannot make a silk purse out of a sow's ear, so 
neither can we hope to succeed with the opposite 
experiment. But we may spoil the silk for its legiti- 
mate uses. I can conceive of no healthier reading 

1 The first line of Keats's poem Endymion suggested this 
phrase. 



BOOKS AND LIBRARIES. 235 

for a boy, or girl either, than Scott's novels, or 
Cooper's, to speak only of the dead. I have found 
them very good reading at least for one young man, 
for one middle-aged man, and for one who is growing 
old. No, no — banish the Antiquary., banish Leather 
Stocking, and banish all the world ! ^ Let us not go 
about to make life duller than it is. 

But I must shut the doors of my imaginary library 
or I shall never end. It is left for me to say a few 
words of cordial acknowledgment to Mr. Fitz for his 
judicious and generous gift. I have great pleasure 
in believing that the custom of giving away money 
during their lifetime (and there is nothing harder for 
most men to part with, except prejudice) is more com- 
mon with Americans than with any other people. 
It is a still greater pleasure to see that the favorite 
direction of their beneficence is towards the founding 
of colleges and libraries. My observation has led me 
to believe that there is no country in which wealth is 
so sensible of its obligations as our own. And, as 
most of our rich men have risen from the ranks, may 
we not fairly attribute this symj^athy with their kind 
to the benign influence of democracy rightly under- 
stood? My dear and honored friend, George Wil- 
liam Curtis, told me that he was sitting in front of 
the late Mr. Ezra Cornell in a convention, where one 
of the speakers made a Latin quotation. Mr. Cornell 
leaned forward and asked for a translation of it, 
which Mr. Curtis gave him. Mr. Cornell thanked 
him, and added, *' If I can help it, no young man 
shall grow up in New York hereafter without the 

1 In Shakespeare's King Henry IV., Part I., Act II. sc. 4, will 
be found the phrase which was in Mr. Lowell's mind when he 
wrote this. 



236 JAMES RUSSELL LOWELL. 

chance, at least, of knowing what a Latin quotation 
means when he hears it." This was the germ of 
Cornell University,^ and it found food for its roots in 
that sympathy and thoughtfulness for others of which 
I just spoke. This is the healthy side of that good 
nature which democracy tends to foster, and which is 
so often harmful when it has its root in indolence 
or indifference ; especially harmful where our public 
affairs are concerned, and where it is easiest, because 
there we are giving away what belongs to other peo- 
ple. It should be said, however, that in this country 
it is as laudably easy to procure signatures to a sub- 
scription paper as it is shamefully so to obtain them 
for certificates of character and recommendations to 
office. And is not this public spirit a national evolu- 
tion from that frame of mind in which New England 
was colonized, and which found expression in these 
grave words of Robinson and Brewster, ^ " We are 
knit together as a body in a most strict and sacred 
bond and covenant of the Lord, of the violation of 
which we make great conscience, and by virtue 
whereof we hold ourselves strictly tied to all care of 
each other's good and of the whole " ? Let us never 
forget the deep and solemn import of these words. 
The problem before us is to make a whole of our 
many discordant parts, our many foreign elements; 
and I know of no way in which this can better be 
done than by providing a common system of educa- 
tion, and a common door of access to the best books 
by which that education may be continued, broadened, 

1 The motto about the seal of Cornell University indicates 
Mr. Cornell's conception of that institution. 

2 In a letter signed jointly by them to Sir Edwin Sandys, to 
be found in Bradford's History of Plymouth Plantation, page 20. 



BOOKS AND LIBRARIES. 237 

and made fruitful. For it is certain that, whatever 
we do or leave undone, those discordant parts and 
foreign elements are to be, whether we will or no, 
members of that body which Robinson and Brewster 
had in mind, bone of our bone, and flesh of our flesh, 
for good or ill. I am happy in believing that demo- 
cracy has enough vigor of constitution to assimilate 
these seemingly indigestible morsels, and transmute 
them into strength of muscle and symmetry of limb.^ 

There is no way in which a man can build so secure 
and lasting a monument for himself as in a public 
library. Upon that he may confidently allow " Re- 
surgam " ^ to be carved, for, through his good deed, 
he will rise again in the grateful remembrance and in 
the lifted and broadened minds and fortified characters 
of generation after generation. The pyramids may 
forget their builders, but memorials such as this have 
longer memories. 

Mr. Fitz has done his part in providing your library 
with a dwelling. It will be for the citizens of Chelsea 
to provide it with worthy habitants. So shall they, 
too, have a share in the noble eulogy of the ancient 
wise man : " The teachers shall shine as the firmament, 
and they that turn many to righteousness as the stars 
forever and ever." 

1 For a fuller statement of Mr. Lowell's faith, see his address 
Democracy. 

2 This Latin word, " I shall rise again," reappears in the word 
resurrection. 



238 JAMES RUSSELL LOWELL. 



ABRAHAM LINCOLN.^ 

There have been many painful crises since the im- 
patient vanity of South Carolina hurried ten prosper- 
ous Commonwealths into a crime whose assured retri- 
bution was to leave them either at the mercy of the 
nation they had wronged, or of the anarchy they had 
summoned but could not control, when no thoughtful 
American opened his morning paper without dreading 
to find that he had no longer a conntry to love and 
honor. Whatever the result of the convulsion whose 
first shocks were beginning to be felt, there would still 
be enough square miles of earth for elbow-room ; but 
that ineffable sentiment made up of memory and 
hope, of instinct and tradition, which swells every 
man's heart and shapes his thought, thongh perhaps 
never present to his consciousness, would be gone 
from it, leaving it common earth and nothing more. 
Men might gather rich crops from it, but that ideal 
harvest of priceless associations would be reaped no 
longer ; that fine virtue which sent up messages of 
courage and security from every sod of it would have 
evaporated beyond recall. We should be irrevocably 
cut off from our past, and be forced to splice the 
ragged ends of our lives upon whatever new conditions 
chance might leave dangling for us. 

We confess that we had our doubts at first whether 
the patriotism of our people were not too narrowly 
provincial to embrace the proportions of national 

^ This paper was publislied by Mr. Lowell originally in the 
North American Review for January, 1864. When he reprinted it 
in his volume, My Study Windows, he added the final paragraph, 
and inserted a few sentences elsewhere. 



ABRAHAM LINCOLN. 239 

peril. We felt an only too natural distrust of im- 
mense public meetings and enthusiastic cheers. 

That a reaction should follow the holiday enthusi- 
asm with which the war was entered on, that it should 
follow soon, and that the slackening of public spirit 
should be proportionate to the previous over-tension, 
might well be foreseen by all who had studied human 
nature or history. Men acting gregariously are al- 
ways in extremes ; as they are one moment capable of 
higher courage, so they are liable, the next, to baser 
depression, and it is often a matter of chance whether 
numbers shall multiply confidence or discouragement. 
Nor does deception lead more surely to distrust of 
men, than self-deception to suspicion of principles. 
The only faith that wears well and holds its color in 
all weathers is that which is woven of conviction and 
set with the sharp mordant of experience. Enthusi- 
asm is good material for the orator, but the statesman 
needs something more durable to work in, — must be 
able to rely on the deliberate reason and consequent 
firmness of the people, without which that presence of 
mind, no less essential in times of moral than of ma- 
terial peril, will be wanting at the critical moment. 
Would this fervor of the Free States hold out ? Was 
it kindled by a just feeling of the value of constitu- 
tional liberty ? Had it body enough to withstand the 
inevitable dampening of checks, reverses, delays? 
Had our population intelligence enough to comprehend 
that the choice was between order and anarchy, be- 
tween the equilibrium of a government by law and the 
tussle of misrule by proinmclamiento f Could a war 
be maintained without the ordinary stimulus of hatred 
and plunder, and with the impersonal loyalty of prin- 
ciple ? Those were serious questions, and with no pre- 
cedent to aid in answering them. 



240 JAMES RUSSELL LOWELL. 

At the beginning of the war there was, indeed, oc- 
casion for the most anxious apprehension. A presi- 
dent known to be infected with the political heresies, 
and suspected of sympathy with the treason, of the 
Southern conspirators, had just surrendered the reins, 
we will not say of power, but of chaos, to a successor 
known only as the representative of a party whose 
leaders, with long training in opposition, had none in 
the conduct of affairs ; an empty treasury was called 
on to supply resources beyond precedent in the history 
of finance ; the trees were yet growing and the iron 
unmined with which a navy was to be built and ar- 
mored ; officers without discipline were to make a mob 
into an army ; and, above all, the public opinion of 
Europe, echoed and reinforced with every vague hint 
and every specious argument of despondency by a 
powerful faction at home, was either contemptuously 
sceptical or actively hostile. It would be hard to 
overestimate the force of this latter element of disin- 
tegration and discouragement among a people where 
every citizen at home, and every soldier in the field, is 
a reader of newspapers. The pedlers of rumor in the 
North were the most effective allies of the rebellion. 
A nation can be liable to no more insidious treachery 
than that of the telegraph, sending hourly its electric 
thrill of panic along the remotest nerves of the com- 
munity, till the excited imagination makes every real 
danger loom heightened with its unreal double. 

And even if we look only at more palpable difficul- 
ties, the problem to be solved by our civil war was so 
vast, both in its immediate relations and its future 
consequences ; the conditions of its solution were so 
intricate and so greatly dependent on incalculable and 
uncontrollable contingencies ; so many of the data, 



ABRAHAM LINCOLN. 241 

whether for hope or fear, were, from their novelty, 
incapable of arrangement under any of the categories 
of historical precedent, that there were moments of 
crisis when the firmest believer in the strength and 
sufficiency of the democratic theory of government 
might well hold his breath in vague apprehension of 
disaster. Our teachers of political philosophy, sol- 
emnly arguing from the precedent of some petty Gre- 
cian, Italian, or Flemish city, whose long periods of 
aristocracy were broken now and then by awkward 
parentheses of mob, had always taught us that demo- 
cracies were incapable of the sentiment of loyalty, of 
concentrated and prolonged effort, of far-reaching 
conceptions ; were absorbed in material interests ; im- 
patient of regular, and much more of exceptional re- 
straint ; had no natural nucleus of gravitation, nor any 
forces but centrifugal ; were always on the verge of 
civil war, and slunk at last into the natural almshouse 
of bankrupt popular government, a military despotism. 
Here was indeed a dreary outlook for persons who 
knew democracy, not by rubbing shoulders with it 
lifelong, but merely from books, and America only by 
the report of some fellow-Briton, who, having eaten a 
bad dinner or lost a carpet-bag here, had written to 
The Times demanding redress, and drawing a mourn- 
ful inference of democratic instability. Nor were men 
wanting among ourselves who had so steeped their 
brains in London literature as to mistake Cockneyism 
for European culture*, and contempt of their country 
for cosmopolitan breadth of view, and who, owing all 
they had and all they were to democracy, thought it 
had an air of high-breeding to join in the shallow 
epicedium that our bubble had burst. 

But beside any disheartening influences which might 



242 JAMES RUSSELL LOWELL. 

affect the timid or tlie desjjondent, there were reasons 
enough of settled gravity against any over-confidence 
of hope. A war — which, whether we consider the 
expanse of the territory at stake, the hosts brought 
into the field, or the reach of the principles involved, 
may fairly be reckoned the most momentous of mod- 
ern times — was to be waged by a people divided at 
home, unnerved by fifty years of peace, under a chief 
magistrate without experience and without reputation, 
whose every measure was sure to be cunningly ham- 
pered by a jealous and unscrupulous minority, and 
who, while dealing with unheard-of complications at 
home, must soothe a hostile neutrality abroad, waiting- 
only a pretext to become war. All this was to be 
done without warning and without preparation, while 
at the same time a social revolution was to be accom- 
plished in the political condition of four millions of 
people, by softening the prejudices, allaying the fears, 
and gradually obtaining the cooperation, of their un- 
willing liberators. Surely, if ever there were an occa- 
sion when the heightened imagination of the historian 
might see Destiny visible intervening in human affairs, 
here was a knot worthy of her shears. Never, per- 
haps, was any system of government tried by so con- 
tinuous and searching a strain as ours during the last 
three years ; never has any shown itself stronger ; 
and never could that strength be so directly traced to 
the virtue and intelligence of the people, — to that 
general enlightenment and prompt efficiency oi public 
opinion possible only under the influence of a political 
framework like our own. We find it hard to under- 
stand how even a foreigner should be blind to the 
grandeur of the combat of ideas that has been going 
on here, — to the heroic energy, persistency, and self- 



ABRAHAM LINCOLN. 243 

reliance of a nation proving that it knows liow much 
dearer greatness is than mere power ; and we ow n that 
it is impossible for us to conceive the mental and 
moral condition of the American who does not feel 
his spirit braced and heightened by being even a 
spectator of such qualities and achievements. That a 
steady purpose and a definite aim have been given to 
the jarring forces which, at the beginning of the war, 
spent themselves in the discussion of schemes which 
could only become operative, if at all, after the war 
was over ; that a popular excitement has been slowly 
intensified into an earnest national will ; that a some- 
what impracticable moral sentiment has been made 
the unconscious instrument of a practical moral end ; 
that the treason of covert enemies, the jealousy of 
rivals, the unwise zeal of friends, have been made not 
only useless for mischief, but even useful for good ; 
that the conscientious sensitiveness of England to the 
horrors of civil conflict has been prevented from com- 
plicating a domestic with a foreign war ; — all these 
results, any one of which might suffice to prove great- 
ness in a ruler, have been mainly due to the good 
sense, the good-humor, the sagacity, the large-minded- 
ness, and the unselfish honesty of the unknown man 
whom a blind fortune, as it seemed, had lifted from 
the crowd to the most dangerous and difacult eminence 
of modern times. It is by presence of mind in un- 
tried emergencies that the native metal of a man is 
tested ; it is by the sagacity to see, and the fearless 
honesty to admit, whatever of truth there may be in 
an adverse opinion, in order more convincingly to 
expose the fallacy that lurks behind it, that a reasoner 
at length gains for his mere statement of a fact the 
force of argument; it is by a wise forecast which 



244 JAMES RUSSELL LOWELL. 

allows hostile combinations to go so far as by the in- 
evitable reaction to become elements of his own power, 
that a politician proves his genius for state-craft ; and 
especially it is by so gently guiding public sentiuient 
that he seems to follow it, by so yielding doubtful 
points that he can be firm without seeming obstinate 
in essential ones, and thus gain the advantages of com- 
promise without the weakness of concession ; by so in- 
stinctively comprehending the temper and prejudices 
of a people as to make them gradually conscious of 
the superior wisdom of his freedom from temper and 
prejudice, — it is by qualities such as these that a 
magistrate shows himself worthy to bo chief in a com- 
monwealth of freemen. And it is for qualities such 
as these that we firmly believe History will rank Mr. 
Lincoln among the most prudent of statesmen and the 
most successful of rulers. If we wish to appreciate 
him, we have only to conceive the inevitable chaos in 
which we should now be weltering had a weak man or 
an unwise one been chosen in his stead. 

" Bare is back," says the Norse proverb, " without 
brother behind it ; " and this is, by analogy, true of 
an elective magistracy. The hereditary ruler in any 
critical emergency may reckon on the inexhaustible 
resources of prestige, of sentiment, of superstition, of 
dependent interest, while the new man must slowly 
and painfully create all these out of the unwilling 
material around him, by superiority of character, by 
patient singleness of purpose, by sagacious presenti- 
ment of popular tendencies and instinctive sympathy 
with the national character. Mr. Lincoln's task was 
one of peculiar and exceptional difficulty. Long 
habit had accustomed the American people to the 
notion of a party in power, and of a President as its 



ABRAHAM LINCOLN. 245 

creature and organ, while the more vital fact, that the 
executive for the time being represents the abstract 
idea of government as a permanent principle superior 
to all party and all private interest, had gradually 
become unfamiliar. They had so long seen the pub- 
lic policy more or less directed by views of party, and 
often even of personal advantage, as to be ready to 
suspect the motives of a chief magistrate compelled, 
for the first time in our history, to feel himself the 
head and hand of a great nation, and to act upon the 
fundamental maxim, laid down by all publicists, that 
the first duty of a government is to defend and main- 
tain its own existence; Accordingly, a powerful wea- 
pon seemed to be put into the hands of the opposition 
by the necessity under which the administration found 
itself of applying this old truth to new relations. Nor 
were the opposition his only nor his most dangerous 
opponents. 

The Republicans had carried the country upon an 
issue in which ethics were more directly and visibly 
mingled with politics than usual. Their leaders were 
trained to a method of oratory which relied for its 
effect rather on the moral sense than the understand- 
ing. Their arguments were drawn, not so much from 
experience as from general principles of right and 
wrong. When the war came, their system continued 
to be applicable and effective, for here again the rea- 
son of the people was to be reached and kindled 
through their sentiments. It was one of those periods 
of excitement, gathering, contagious, universal, which, 
while they last, exalt and clarify the minds of men, 
giving to the mere words country^ human rights^ de- 
7nocra.cy^ a meaning and a force beyond that of sober 
and logical argument. They were convictions, main- 



246 JAMES RUSSELL LOWELL. 

tained and defended by the supreme logic of passion. 
That penetrating fire ran in and roused those primary 
instincts that make their lair in the dens and caverns 
of the mind. What is called the great popular heart 
was awakened, that indefinable something which may 
be, according to circumstances, the highest reason or 
the most brutish unreason. But enthusiasm, once cold, 
can never be warmed over into anything better than 
cant, — and phrases, when once the inspiration that 
filled them with beneficent power has ebbed away, 
retain only that semblance of meaning which enables 
them to supplant reason in hasty minds. Among the 
lessons taught by the French Ee volution there is none 
sadder or more striking than this, that you may make 
everything else out of the passions of men except a 
political system that will work, and that there is no- 
thing so pitilessly and unconsciously cruel as sincerity 
formulated into dogma. It is always demoralizing to 
extend the domain of sentiment over questions where 
it has no legitimate jurisdiction ; and perhaps the se- 
verest strain upon Mr. Lincoln was in resisting a ten- 
dency of his own supporters which chimed with his 
own private desires while wholly opposed to his con- 
victions of what would be wise policy. 

The change which three years have brought about 
is too remarkable to be passed over without comment, 
too weighty in its lesson not to be laid to heart. 
Never did a President enter upon office with less 
means at his command, outside his own strength of 
heart and steadiness of understanding, for insjiiring 
confidence in the people, and so winning it for him- 
self, than Mr. Lincoln. All that was known of him 
was that he was a good stump-speaker, nominated for 
his availability^ — that is, because he had no history, 



ABRAHAM LINCOLN. 247 

— and chosen by a party with whose more extreme 
opinions he was not in sympathy. It might well be 
feared that a man past fifty, against whom the inge- 
nuity of hostile partisans could rake up no accusation, 
must be lacking in manliness of character, in decision 
of principle, in strength of will ; that a man who was 
at best only the representative of a party, and who yet 
did not fairly represent even that, would fail of politi- 
cal, much more of popular, support. And certainly 
no one ever entered upon office with so few resources 
of power in the past, and so many materials of weak- 
ness in the present, as Mr. Lincoln. Even in that 
half of the Union which acknowledged him as Presi- 
dent, there was a large, and at that time dangerous 
minority, that hardly admitted his claim to the office, 
and even in the party that elected him there was also 
a large minority that suspected him of being secretly 
a communicant with the church of Laodicea.^ All 
that he did was sure to be virulently attacked as ultra 
by one side ; all that he left undone, to be stigmatized 
as proof of lukewarmness and backsliding by the other. 
Meanwhile he was to carry on a truly colossal war by 
means of both ; he was to disengage the country from 
diplomatic entanglements of unprecedented peril un- 
disturbed by the help or the hinderance of either, and 
to win from the crowning dangers of his administra- 
tion, in the confidence of the people, the means of his 
safety and their own. He has contrived to do it, and 
perhaps none of our Presidents since Washington has 
stood so firm in the confidence of the people as he 
does after three years of stormy administration. 

Mr. Lincoln's policy was a tentative one, and 
rightly so. He laid down no programme which must 
1 See the Book of Revelation ^ chapter 3, verse 15. 



248 JAMES RUSSELL LOWELL. 

compel him to be either inconsistent or unwise, no 
cast-iron theorem to which circumstances must be 
fitted as they rose, or else be useless to his ends. He 
seemed to have chosen Mazarin's motto, Le temps et 
moi} The moi, to be sure, was not very prominent 
at first ; but it has grown more and more so, till the 
world is beginning to be persuaded that it stands for a 
character of marked individuality and capacity for af- 
fairs. Time was his prime-minister, and, we began to 
think, at one period, his general-in-chief also. At first 
he was so slow that he tired out all those who see no 
evidence of progress but in blowing up the engine; 
then he was so fast that he took the breath away from 
those who think there is no getting on safely while 
there is a spark of fire under the boilers. God is the 
only being who has time enough ; but a prudent man, 
who knows how to seize occasion, can commonly make 
a shift to find as much as he needs. Mr. Lincoln, as 
it seems to us in reviewing his career, though we have 
sometimes in our impatience thought otherwise, has 
always waited, as a wise man should, till the right mo- 
ment brought up all his reserves. Semper nocuit dif- 
ferre paratis? is a sound axiom, but the really effi- 
cacious man will also be sure to know when he is not 
ready, and be firm against all persuasion and reproach 
till he is. 

One would be apt to think, from some of the criti- 
cisms made on Mr. Lincoln's course by those who 
mainly agree with him in principle, that the chief ob- 
ject of a statesman should be rather to proclaim his 
adhesion to certain doctrines, than to achieve their 

1 Time and I. Cardinal Mazarin was prime-minister of Louis 
XIV. of France. Time, Mazarin said, was his prime-minister. 

2 It is always bad for those who are ready to put off action. 



ABRAHAM LINCOLN. 249 

triumph by quietly accomplishing his ends. In our 
opinion, there is no more unsafe politician than a con- 
scientiously rigid doctrinaire^ nothing more sure to 
end' in disaster than a theoretic scheme of policy that 
admits of no pliability for contingencies. True, there 
is a popular image of an impossible He, in whose plas- 
tic hands the submissive destinies of mankind become 
as wax, and to whose commanding necessity the tough- 
est facts yield with the graceful pliancy of fiction ; but 
in real life we commonly find that the men who con- 
trol circumstances, as it is called, are those who have 
learned to allow for the influence of their eddies, and 
have the nerve to turn them to account at the happy 
instant. Mr. Lincoln's perilous task has been to carry 
a rather shaky raft through the rapids, making fast 
the unrulier logs as he could snatch opportunity, and 
the country is to be congratulated that he did not 
think it his duty to run straight at all hazards, but 
cautiously to assure himself with his setting-pole where 
the main current was, and keep steadily to that. He 
is still in wild water, but we have faith that his skill 
and sureness of eye will bring him out right at last. 

A curious, and, as we think, not inapt parallel, 
might be drawn between Mr. Lincoln and one of the 
most striking figures in modern history, — Henry IV. 
of France. The career of the latter may be more pic- 
turesque, as that of a daring captain always is ; but in 
all its vicissitudes there is nothing more romantic than 
that sudden change, as by a rub of Aladdin's lamp, 
from the attorney's office in a country town of Illinois 
to the helm of a great nation in times like these. The 
analogy between the characters and circumstances of 
the two men is in many respects singularly close. 
Succeeding to a rebellion rather than a crown, Henry's 



250 JAMES RUSSELL LOWELL. 

chief material dependence was the Huguenot party, 
whose doctrines sat upon him with a looseness dis- 
tasteful certainly, if not suspicious to the more fanati- 
cal among them. King only in name over the greater 
part of France, and with his capital barred against 
him, it yet gradually became clear to the more far- 
seeing even of the Catholic party that he was the only 
centre of order and legitimate authority round which 
France could reorganize itself. While preachers who 
held the divine right of kings made the churches of 
Paris ring with declamations in favor of democracy 
rather than submit to the heretic dog of a Bearnois,^ 
— much as our soi-cUscmt Democrats have lately been 
preaching the divine right of slavery, and denouncing 
the heresies of the Declaration of Independence, — 
Henry bore both parties in hand till he was convinced 
that only one course of action could possibly combine 
his own interests and those of France. Meanwhile 
the Protestants believed somewhat doubtfully that he 
was theirs, the Catholics hoped somewhat doubtfully 
that he would be theirs, and Henry himself turned 
aside remonstrance, advice, and curiosity alike with a 
jest or a proverb (if a little high, he liked them none 
the worse), joking continually as his manner was. 
We have seen Mr. Lincoln contemptuously compared 
to Sancho Panza by persons incapable of appreciating 
one of the deepest pieces of wisdom in the profoundest 
romance ever written ; namely, that while Don Qui- 
xote was incomparable in theoretic and ideal states- 
manship, Sancho, with his stock of proverbs, the 
ready money of human experience, made the best pos- 
sible practical governor. Henry IV. was as full of 

1 One of Henry's titles was Prince of Bdarn, that being the 
old province of France from which he came. 



ABRAHAM LINCOLN. 251 

wise saws and modern instances as Mr. Lincoln, but 
beneath all this was the thoughtful, practical, humane, 
and thoroughly earnest man, around whom the frag- 
ments of France were to gather themselves till she 
took her place again as a planet of the first magnitude 
in the European system. In one respect Mr. Lincoln 
was more fortunate than Henry. However some may 
think him wanting in zeal, the most fanatical can find 
no taint of apostasy in any measure of his, nor can 
the most bitter charge him with being influenced by 
motives of personal interest. The leading distinction 
between the policies of the two is one of circumstances. 
Henry went over to the nation ; Mr. Lincoln has stead- 
ily drawn the nation over to him. One left a united 
France ; the other, we hope and believe, will leave a 
reunited America. We leave our readers to trace the 
further points of difference and resemblance for them- 
selves, merely suggesting a general similarity which 
has often occurred to us. One only point of melan- 
choly interest we will allow ourselves to touch upon. 
That Mr. Lincoln is not handsome nor elegant, we 
learn from certain English tourists who would consider 
similar revelations in regard to Queen Victoria as 
thoroughly American in their want of hlenseance. It 
is no concern of ours, nor does it affect his fitness for 
the high place he so worthily occupies ; but he is 
certainly as fortunate as Henry in the matter of good 
looks, if we may trust contemporary evidence. Mr. 
Lincoln has also been reproached with Americanism 
by some not unfriendly British critics ; but, with all 
deference, we cannot say that we like him any the 
worse for it, or see in it any reason why he should 
govern Americans the less wisely. 

People of more sensitive organizations may be 



252 JAMES RUSSELL LOWELL. 

shocked, but we are glad that in this, our true war of 
independence, which is to free us forever from the Old 
World, we have had at the head of our affairs a man 
whom America made, as God made Adam, out of the 
very earth, unancestried, unprivileged, unknown, to 
show us how much truth, how much magnanimity, and 
how much statecraft await the call of opportunity in 
simple manhood when it believes in the justice of God 
and the worth of man. Conventionalities are all very 
well in their proper place, but they shrivel at the touch 
of nature like stubble in the fire. The genius that 
sways a nation by its arbitrary will seems less august 
to us than that which multiplies and reinforces itself in 
the instincts and convictions of an entire people. Au- 
tocracy may have something in it more melodramatic 
than this, but falls far short of it in human value and 
interest. 

Experience would have bred in us a rooted distrust 
of improvised statesmanship, even if we did not believe 
politics to be a science, which, if it cannot always com- 
mand men of special aptitude and great powers, at 
least demands the long and steady application of the 
best powers of such men as it can command to master 
even its first principles. It is curious, that, in a coun- 
try which boasts of its intelligence, the theory should 
be so generally held that the most complicated of hu- 
man contrivances, and one which every day becomes 
more complicated, can be worked at sight by any man 
able to talk for an hour or two without stopping to 
think. 

Mr. Lincoln is sometimes claimed as an example of 
a ready-made ruler. But no case could well be less in 
point ; for, besides that he was a man of such fair- 
mindedness as is always the raw material of wisdom, 



ABRAHAM LINCOLN. 253 

lie had in his profession a training precisely the oppo- 
site of that to which a partisan is subjected. His ex- 
perience as a lawyer compelled him not only to see 
that there is a principle underlying every phenomenon 
in human affairs, but that there are always two sides 
to every question, both of which must be fully under- 
stood in order to understand either, and that it is of 
greater advantage to an advocate to appreciate the 
strength than the weakness of his antagonist's position. 
Nothing is more remarkable than the unerring tact 
with which, in his debate with Mr. Douglas, he went 
straight to the reason of the question ; nor have we 
ever had a more striking lesson in political tactics than 
the fact, that opposed to a man exceptionally adroit in 
using popular prejudice and bigotry to his purpose, 
exceptionally unscrupulous in appealing to those baser 
motives that turn a meeting of citizens into a mob of 
barbarians, he should yet have won his case before a 
jury of the people. Mr. Lincoln was as far as possi- 
ble from an impromptu politician. His wisdom was 
made up of a knowledge of things as well as of men ; 
his sagacity resulted from a clear perception and hon- 
est acknowledgment of difficulties, which enabled him 
to see that the only durable triumph of political opin- 
ion is based, not on any abstract right, but upon so 
much of justice, the highest attainable at any given 
moment in human affairs, as may be had in the bal- 
ance of mutual concession. Doubtless he had an 
ideal, but it was the ideal of a practical statesman, — 
to aim at the best, and to take the next best, if he is 
lucky enough to get even that. His slow, but singu- 
larly masculine intelligence taught him that precedent 
is only another name for embodied experience, and 
that it counts for even more in the guidance of com- 



254 JAMES RUSSELL LOWELL. 

munities of men than in that of the individual life. 
He was not a man who held it good public economy to 
pull down on the mere chance of rebuilding better. 
Mr. Lincoln's faith in God was qualified by a very 
well-founded distrust of the wisdom of man. Perhaps 
it was his want of self-confidence that more than any- 
thing else won him the unlimited confidence of the 
people, for they felt that there would be no need of 
retreat from any position he had deliberately taken. 
The cautious, but steady, advance of his policy during 
the war was like that of a Roman army. He left be- 
hind him a firm road on which public confidence could 
follow ; he took America with him where he went ; 
what he gained he occupied, and his advanced posts 
became colonies. The very homeliness of his genius 
was its distinction. His kingship was conspicuous by 
its workday homespun. Never was ruler so absolute 
as he, nor so little conscious of it ; for he was the in- 
carnate common-sense of the people. With all that 
tenderness of nature whose sweet sadness touched 
whoever saw him with something of its own pathos, 
there was no trace of sentimentalism in his speech or 
action. He seems to have had but one rule of con- 
duct, always that of practical and successful politics, 
to let himself be guided by events, when they were 
sure to bring him out where he wished to go, though 
by what seemed to unpractical minds, which let go the 
possible to grasp at the desirable, a longer road. 

Undoubtedly the highest function of statesmanship 
is by degrees to accommodate the conduct of commu- 
nities to ethical laws, and to subordinate the conflict- 
ing self-interests of the day to higher and more per- 
manent concerns. But it is on the understanding, 
and not on the sentiment, of a nation that all safe 



ABRAHAM LINCOLN. 255 

legislation must be based. Voltaire's saying, that " a 
consideration of petty circumstances is the tomb of 
great things," may be true of individual men, but it 
certainly is not true of governments. It is by a mul- 
titude of such considerations, each in itself trifling, but 
all together weighty, that the framers of policy can 
alone divine what is practicable and therefore wise. 
The imputation of inconsistency is one to which every 
sound politician and every honest thinker must sooner 
or later subject himself. The foolish and the dead 
alone never change their opinion. The course of a 
great statesman resembles that of navigable rivers, 
avoiding immovable obstacles with noble bends of con- 
cession, seeking the broad levels of opinion on which 
men soonest settle and longest dwell, following and 
marking the almost imperceptible slopes of national 
tendency, yet always aiming at direct advances, always 
recruited from sources nearer heaven, and sometimes 
bursting open paths of progress and fruitful human 
commerce through what seem the eternal barriers of 
both. It is loyalty to great ends, even though forced 
to combine the small and opposing motives of selfish 
men to accomplish them ; it is the anchored cling to 
solid principles of duty and action, which knows how 
to swing with the tide, but is never carried away by it, 
— that we domand in public men, and not sameness 
of policy, or a conscientious persistency in what is im- 
practicable. For the impracticable, however theoreti- 
cally enticing, is always politically unwise, sound 
statesmanship being the application of that prudence 
to the public business which is the safest guide in that 
of private men. 

No doubt slavery was the most delicate and embar- 
rassing question with which Mr. Lincoln was called 



256 JAMES RUSSELL LOWELL. 

on to deal, and it was one which no man in his posi- 
tion, whatever his opinions, could evade ; for, though 
he might withstand the clamor of partisans, he must 
sooner or later yield to the persistent importunacy of 
circumstances, which thrust the problem upon him at 
every turn and in every shape. 

It has been brought against us as an accusation 
abroad, and repeated here by peoj)le who measure 
their country rather by what is thought of it than by 
what it is, that our war has not been distinctly and 
avowedly for the extinction of slavery, but a war rather 
for the preservation of our national power and great- 
ness, in which the emancipation of the negro has been 
forced upon us by circumstances and accepted as a 
necessity. We are very far from denying this ; nay, 
we admit that it is so far true that we were slow to 
renounce our constitutional obligations even toward 
those who had absolved us by their own act from the 
letter of our duty. We are speaking of the govern- 
ment which, legally installed for the whole country, 
was bound, so long as it was possible, not to overstep 
the limits of orderly prescription, and could not, with- 
out abnegating its own very nature, take the lead in 
making rebellion an excuse for revolution. There 
were, no doubt, many ardent and sincere persons who 
seemed to think this as simple a thing to do as to lead 
off a Virginia reel. They forgot, what should be for- 
gotten least of all in a system like ours, that the ad- 
ministration for the time being represents not only 
the majority which elects it, but the minority as well, 
— a minority in this case powerful, and so little ready 
for emancipation that it was opposed even to war. 
Mr. Lincoln had not been chosen as general agent of 
an anti-slavery society, but President of the United 



ABRAHAM LINCOLN. 257 

States, to perform certain functions exactly defined by 
law. Whatever were liis wishes, it was no less duty 
than policy to mark out for himself a line of action 
that would not further distract the country, by raising 
before their time questions which plainly would soon 
enough compel attention, and for which every day 
was making the answer more easy. 

Meanwhile he must solve the riddle of this new 
Sphinx, or be devoured. Though Mr. Lincoln's policy 
in this critical affair has not been such as to satisfy 
those who demand an heroic treatment for even the 
most trifling occasion, and who will not cut their coat 
according to their cloth, unless they can borrow the 
scissors of Atropos,i it has been at least not unworthy 
of the long-headed king of Ithaca.^ Mr. Lincoln had 
the choice of Bassanio ^ offered him. Which of the 
three caskets held the prize that was to redeem the 
fortunes of the country ? There was the golden one 
whose showy speciousness might have tempted a vain 
man ; the silver of compromise, which might have de- 
cided the choice of a merely acute one; and the 
leaden, — dull and homely-looking, as prudence al- 
ways is, — yet with something about it sure to attract 
the eye of practical wisdom. Mr. Lincoln dallied 
with his decision perhaps longer than seemed needful 
to those on whom its awful responsibility was not to 
rest, but when he made it, it was worthy of his cau- 
tious but sure-footed understanding. The moral of 
the Sphinx-riddle, and it is a deep one, lies in the 
childish simplicity of the solution. Those who fail in 
guessing it, fail because they are over-ingenious, and 

^ One of the three Fates. 

2 Odysseus, or Ulysses, the hero of Homer's Odyssey. 

2 See Shakespeare's Merchant of Venice. 



258 JAMES RUSSELL LOWELL. 

cast about for an answer that sliall suit their own no- 
tion of the gravity of the occasion and of their own 
dignity, rather than the occasion itself. 

In a matter which must be finally settled by public 
opinion, and in regard to which the ferment of preju- 
dice and passion on both sides has not yet subsided to 
that equilibrium of compromise from which alone a 
sound public opinion can result, it is proper enough 
for the private citizen to press his own convictions 
with all possible force of argument and persuasion ; 
but the popular magistrate, whose judgment must be- 
come action, and whose action involves the whole 
country, is bound to wait till the sentiment of the 
people is so far advanced toward his own point of 
view, that what he does shall find support in it, in- 
stead of merely confusing it with new elements of di- 
vision. It was not unnatural that men earnestly de- 
voted to the saving of their country, and profoundly 
convinced that slavery was its only real enemy, should 
demand a decided policy round which all patriots 
might rally, — and this might have been the wisest 
course for an absolute ruler. But in the then unset- 
tled state of the public mind, with a large party de- 
crying even resistance to the slaveholders' rebellion as 
not only unwise, but even unlawful ; with a majority, 
perhaps, even of the would-be loyal so long accus- 
tomed to regard the Constitution as a deed of gift 
conveying to the South their own judgment as to pol- 
icy and instinct as to right, that they were in doubt at 
firs-t whether their loyalty were due to the country or 
to slavery ; and with a respectable body of honest and 
influential men who still believed in the possibility of 
conciliation, — Mr. Lincoln judged wisely, that, in 
laying down a policy in deference to one party, he 



ABRAHAM LINCOLN. 259 

should be giving to the other the very fulcrum for 
which their disloyalty had been waiting. 

It behooved a clear-headed man in his position not 
to yield so far to an honest indignation against the 
brokers of treason in the North as to lose sight of the 
materials for misleading which were their stock in 
trade, and to forget that it is not the falsehood of 
sophistry which is to be feared, but the grain of truth 
mingled with it to make it specious, — that it is not 
the knavery of the leaders so much as the honesty of 
the followers they may seduce, that gives them power 
for evil. It was especially his duty to do nothing 
which might help the people to forget the true cause 
of the war in fruitless disputes about its inevitable 
consequences. 

The doctrine of State rights can be so handled by 
an adroit demagogue as easily to confound the distinc- 
tion between liberty and lawlessness in the minds of 
ignorant persons, accustomed always to be influenced 
by the sound of certain words, rather than to reflect 
upon the principles which give them meaning. For, 
though Secession involves the manifest absurdity of 
denying to a State the right of making war against 
any foreign power while permitting it against the 
United States ; though it supposes a compact of mu- 
tual concessions and guaranties among States without 
any arbiter in case of dissension ; though it contra- 
dicts common-sense in assuming that the men who 
framed our government did not know what they meant 
when they substituted Union for Confederation ; 
though it falsifies history, which shows that the main 
opposition to the adoption of the Constitution was based 
on the argument that it did not allow that indepen- 
dence in the several States which alone would justify 



260 JAMES RUSSELL LOWELL. 

them in seceding ; — yet, as slavery was universally 
admitted to be a reserved right, an inference could be 
drawn from any direct attack upon it (though only in 
self-defence) to a natural right of resistance, logical 
enough to satisfy minds untrained to detect fallacy, 
as the majority of men always are, and now too much 
disturbed by the disorder of the times, to consider that 
the order of events had any legitimate bearing on the 
argument. Though Mr. Lincoln was too sagacious to 
give the Northern allies of the Rebels the occasion 
they desired and even strove to provoke, yet from the 
beginning of the war the most persistent efforts have 
been made to confuse the public mind as to its origin 
and motives, and to drag the people of the loyal States 
down from the national position they had instinctively 
taken to the old level of party squabbles and antipa- 
thies. The wholly unprovoked rebellion of an oli- 
garchy proclaiming negro slavery the corner-stone of 
free institutions, and in the first flush of over-hasty 
confidence venturing to parade the logical sequence of 
their leading dogma, " that slavery is right in princi- 
ple, and has nothing to do with difference of com- 
plexion," has been represented as a legitimate and 
gallant attempt to maintain the true principles of de- 
mocracy. The rightful endeavor of an established 
government, the least onerous that ever existed, to 
defend itself against a treacherous attack on its very 
existence, has been cunningly made to seem the wicked 
effort of a fanatical clique to force its doctrines on 
an oppressed population. 

Even so long ago as when Mr. Lincoln, not yet con- 
vinced of the danger and magnitude of the crisis, was 
endeavoring to ]3ersuade himself of Union majorities at 
the South, and to carry on a war that was half peace 



ABRAHAM LINCOLN. 261 

in tlie hope of a peace that would have been all war, — 
while he was still enforcing the Fugitive Slave Law, 
under some theory that Secession, however it might 
absolve States from their obligations, could not es- 
cheat them of their claims under the Constitution, and 
that slaveholders in rebellion had alone among mortals 
the privilege of having their cake and eating it at the 
same time, — the enemies of free government were 
striving to persuade the people that the war was an 
Abolition crusade. To rebel without reason was pro- 
claimed as one of the rights of man, while it was care- 
fully kept out of sight that to suppress rebellion is the 
first duty of government. All the evils that have 
come upon the country have been attributed to the 
Abolitionists, though it is hard to see how any party 
can become permanently powerful except in one of 
two ways, either by the greater truth of its princi- 
ples, or the extravagance of the party opposed to it. 
To fancy the ship of state, riding safe at her constitu- 
tional moorings, suddenly engulfed by a huge kraken 
of Abolitionism, rising from unknown depths and 
grasping it with slimy tentacles, is to look at the nat- 
ural history of the matter with the eyes of Pontop- 
pidan.i To believe that the leaders in the Southern 
treason feared any danger from Abolitionism, would 
be to deny them ordinary intelligence, though there 
can be little doubt that they made use of it to stir the 
passions and excite the fears of their deluded accom- 
plices. They rebelled, not because they thought slav- 
ery weak, but because they believed it strong enough, 
not to overthrow the government, but to get posses- 
sion of it ; for it becomes daily clearer that they used 
rebellion only as a means of revolution, and if they 
1 A Danish antiquary and theologian. 



262 JAMES RUSSELL LOWELL. 

got revolution, though not in the shape they looked 
for, is the American people to save them from its con- 
sequences at the cost of its own existence ? The elec- 
tion of Mr. Lincoln, which it was clearly in their 
power to prevent had they wished, was the occasion 
merely, and not the cause of their revolt. Abolition- 
ism, till within a year or two, was the despised heresy 
of a few earnest persons, without political weight 
enough to carry the election of a parish constable ; 
and their cardinal principle was disunion, because 
they were convinced that within the Union the posi- 
tion of slavery was impregnable. In spite of the 
proverb, great effects do not follow from small causes, 
— that is, disproportionately small, — but from ade- 
quate causes acting under certain required conditions. 
To contrast the size of the oak with that of the parent 
acorn, as if the poor seed had paid all costs from its 
slender strong-box, may serve for a child's wonder ; 
but the real miracle lies in that divine league which 
bound all the forces of nature to the service of the 
tiny germ in fulfilling its destiny. Everything has 
been at work for the past ten years in the cause of 
anti-slavery, but Garrison and Phillips have been far 
less successful propagandists than the slaveholders 
themselves, with the constantly growing arrogance of 
their pretensions and encroachments. They have 
forced the question upon the attention of every voter 
in the Free States, by defiantly putting freedom and 
democracy on the defensive. But, even after the 
Kansas outrages, there was no wide-sj)read desire on 
the part of the North to commit aggressions, though 
there was a growing determination to resist them. 
The popular unanimity in favor of the war three years 
ago was but in small measure the result of anti-slavery 



ABRAHAM LINCOLN. 263 

sentiment, far less of any zeal for abolition. But 
every month of the war, every movement of the allies 
of slavery in the Free States, has been making Aboli- 
tionists by the thousand. The masses of any people, 
however intelligent, are very little moved by abstract 
principles of humanity and justice, until those prin- 
ciples are interpreted for them by the stinging com- 
mentary of some infringement upon their own rights, 
and then their instincts and passions, once aroused, 
do indeed derive an incalculable reinforcement of 
impulse and intensity from those higher ideas, those 
sublime traditions, which have no motive political 
force till they are allied with a sense of immediate 
personal wrong or imminent peril. Then at last the 
stars in their courses begin to fight against Sisera. 
Had any one doubted before that the rights of human 
nature are unitary, that oppression is of one hue the 
world over, no matter what the color of the oppressed, 
— had any one failed to see what the real essence of 
the contest was, — the efforts of the advocates of slav- 
ery among ourselves to throw discredit upon the fun- 
damental axioms of the Declaration of Independence 
and the radical doctrines of Christianity, could not 
fail to sharpen his eyes. 

While every day was bringing the people nearer to 
the conclusion which all thinking men saw to be inev- 
itable from the beginning, it was wise in Mr. Lincoln 
to leave the shaping of his policy to events. In this 
country, where the rough and ready understanding of 
the people is sure at last to be the controlling j^ower, 
a profound common-sense is the best genius for states- 
manship. Hitherto the wisdom of the President's 
measures has been justified by the fact that they have 
always resulted in more firmly uniting public opinion. 



264 JAMES RUSSELL LOWELL. 

One of the things particularly admirable in the public 
utterances of President Lincoln is a certain tone of 
familiar dignity^ which, while it is perhaps the most 
difficult attainment of mere style, is also no doubtful 
indication of personal character. There must be 
something essentially noble in an elective ruler who 
can descend to the level of confidential ease without 
losing respect, something very manly in one who can 
break through the etiquette of his conventional rank 
and trust himself to the reason and intelliofcnce of 
those who have elected him. No higher compliment 
was ever paid to a nation than the simple confidence, 
the fireside plainness, with which Mr. Lincoln always 
addresses himself to the reason of the American people. 
This was, indeed, a true democrat, who grounded him- 
self on the assumption that a democracy can think. 
" Come, let us reason together about this matter," has 
been the tone of all his addresses to the people ; and 
accordingly we have never had a chief magistrate who 
so won to himself the love and at the same time the 
judgment of his coimtrymen. To us, that simple con- 
fidence of his in the right-mindedness of his fellow- 
men is very touching, and its success is as strong an 
argument as we have ever seen in favor of the theory 
that men can govern themselves. He never aj^j^eals 
to any vulgar sentiment, he never alludes to the hum- 
bleness of his origin ; it probably never occurred to 
him, indeed, that there was anything higher to start 
from tlian manhood ; and he put himself on a level 
with those he addressed, not by going down to them, 
but only by taking it for granted that they had brains 
and would come up to a common ground of reason. 
In an article lately printed in The Nation, Mr. Bay- 
ard Taylor mentions the striking fact, that in the 



ABRAHAM LINCOLN. 265 

foulest dens of the Five Points lie found the portrait 
of Lincoln. The wretched population that makes its 
hive there threw all its votes and more against him, 
and yet paid this instinctive tribute to the sweet hu- 
manity of his nature. Their ignorance sold its vote 
and took its money, but all that was left of manhood 
in them recognized its saint and martyr. 

Mr. Lincoln is not in the habit of saying, " This is 
mi/ opinion, or my theory," but " This is the conclu- 
sion to which, in my judgment, the time has come, and 
to which, accordingly, the sooner we come the better 
for us." His policy has been the policy of public 
opinion based on adequate discussion and on a timely 
recognition of the influence of passing events in shap- 
ing the features of events to come. 

One secret of Mr. Lincoln's remarkable success in 
captivating the popular mind is undoubtedly an un- 
consciousness of self which enables him, though under 
the necessity of constantly using the capital /, to do 
it without any suggestion of egotism. There is no 
single vowel which men's mouths can pronounce with 
such difference of effect. That which one shall hide 
away, as it were, behind the substance of his dis- 
course, or, if he bring it to the front, shall use merely 
to give an agreeable accent of individuality to what 
he says, another shall make an offensive challenge to 
the self-satisfaction of all his hearers, and an unwar- 
ranted intrusion upon each man's sense of personal 
importance, irritating every pore of his vanity, like 
a dry northeast wind, to a goose-flesh of opposition 
and hostility. Mr. Lincoln has never studied Quin- 
tilian ; ^ but he has, in the earnest simplicity and un- 
affected Americanism of his own character, one art 
^ A famous Latin writer on the Art of Oratory. 



266 JAMES RUSSELL LOWELL. 

of oratory worth all tlie rest. He forgets himself so 
entirely in his object as to give his /the sympathetic 
and persuasive effect of We with the great body of 
his countrymen. Homely, dispassionate, showing all 
the rough-edged process of his thought as it goes 
along, yet arriving at his conclusions with an honest 
kind of every-day logic, he is so eminently our repre- 
sentative man, that, when he speaks, it seems as if the 
people were listening to their own thinking aloud. 
The dignity of his thought owes nothing to any cere- 
monial garb of words, but to the manly movement 
that comes of settled purpose and an energy of reason 
that knows not what rhetoric means. There has been 
nothing of Cleon, still less of Strepsiades ^ striving to 
underbid him in demagogism, to be found in the pub- 
lic utterances of Mr. Lincoln. He has always ad- 
dressed the intelligence of men, never their prejudice, 
their passion, or their ignorance. 



On the day of his death, this simple Western attor- 
ney, who according to one party was a vulgar joker, 
and whom the doctrinaires among his own supporters 
accused of wanting every element of statesmanship, 
was the most absolute ruler in Christendom, and this 
solely by the hold his good-humored sagacity had laid 
on the hearts and understandings of his countrymen. 
Nor was this all, for it appeared that he had drawn 
the great majority, not only of his fellow-citizens, but 
of mankind also, to his side. So strong and so per- 
suasive is honest manliness without a single quality of 
romance or unreal sentiment to help it ! A civilian 

1 Two Athenian demagogues, satirized by the dramatist Aris- 
tophanes. 



ABRAHAM LINCOLN'S SPEECH. 267 

during times of the most captivating military achieve- 
ment, awkward, with no skill in the lower technicali- 
ties of manners, he left behind him a fame beyond 
that of any conqueror, the memory of a grace higher 
than that of outward person, and of a gentlemanliness 
deeper than mere breeding. Never before that star- 
tled April morning did such multitudes of men shed 
tears for the death of one they had never seen, as if 
with him a friendly presence had been taken away from 
their lives, leaving them colder and darker. Never 
" was funeral panegyric so eloquent as the silent look 
of sympathy which strangers exchanged when they 
met on that day. Their common manhood had lost a 
kinsman. 



ABRAHAM LINCOLN'S SPEECH 

AT THE DEDICATION OF THE NATIONAL CEMETERY, GET- 
TYSBURG, PENNSYLVANIA, NOVEMBER 19, 1863. 

[The great battles fought at Gettysburg, Pennsylvania, 
in July, 1863, made that spot historic ground. It was early 
perceived that the battles were critical, and they are now 
looked upon by many as the turning-point of the war for the 
Union. The ground where the fiercest conflict raged was 
taken for a national cemetery, and the dedication of the 
place was made an occasion of great solemnity. The ora- 
tor of the day was Edward Everett, who was regarded as 
the most finished public speaker in the country. Mr. Ever- 
ett made a long and eloquent address, and was followed by 
the President in a little speech which instantaneously af- 
fected the country, whether people were educated or unlet- 
tered, as a great speech. The impression created has deep- 
ened with time. Ralph Waldo Emerson in his essay on 
Eloquence says : " I believe it to be true that when any 



268 JAMES RUSSELL LOWELL. 

orator at the bar or the Senate rises in his thought, he de- 
scends in his language, that is, when he rises to any height 
of thought or passion, he comes down to a language level 
with the ear of all his audience. It is the merit of John 
Brown and of Abraham Lincoln — one at Charlestown, one 
at Gettysburg — in the two best specimens of eloquence we 
have had in this country." 

It is worth while to listen to Mr. Lincoln's own account 
of the education which prepared him for public speaking. 
Before he was nominated for the presidency he had at- 
tracted the notice of people by a remarkable contest in 
debate with a famous Illinois statesman, Stephen Arnold 
Douglas. As a consequence Mr. Lincoln received a great 
many invitations to speak in the Eastern States, and made, 
among others, a notable speecli at the Cooper Union, New 
York. Shortly after, he spoke also at New Haven, and the 
Rev. J. P. Gulliver, in a paper in the Neiu York Indepen- 
dent^ Sept. 1, 1864, thus reports a conversation which he 
held with him when travelling in the same railroad car : — 

" * Ah, that reminds me,' he said, ' of a most extraordi- 
nary circumstance, which occurred in New Haven, the other 
day. They told me that the Professor of Rhetoric in Yale 
College — a very learned man, is n't he ? ' ' Yes, sir, and 
a very fine critic, too.' ' Well, I suppose so ; he ought to 
be, at any rate — They told me that he came to hear me 
and took notes of my speech, and gave a lecture on it to his 
class the next day ; and, not satisfied with that, he followed 
me up to Meriden the next evening, and heard me again for 
the same purpose. Now, if this is so, it is to my mind very 
extraordinary. I have been sufficiently astonished at my 
success in the West. It has been most unexpected. But I 
had no thought of any marked success at tlie East, and least 
of all that I should draw out such commendations from lit- 
erary and learned men ! ' 

" ' That suggests, Mr. Lincoln, an inquiry which has sev- 
eral times been upon my lips during this conversation. I 



ABRAHAM LINCOLN'S SPEECH. 269 

want very much to know how you got this unusual power of 
" putting things." It must have been a matter of educa- 
tion. No man has it by nature alone. What has your edu- 
cation been ? ' 

" ' Well, as to education, the newspapers are correct. I 
never went to school more than six months in my life. But, 
as you say, this must be a product of culture in some form. 
I have been putting the question you ask me to myself while 
you have been talking. I say this, that among my earliest 
recollections, I remember how, when a mere child, I used to 
get irritated when anybody talked to me in a way I could 
not understand. I don't think I ever got angry at anything 
else in my life. But that always disturbed my temper, and 
has ever since. I can remember going to my little bedroom, 
after hearing the neighbors talk of an evening with my 
father, and spending no small part of the night walking up 
and down, and trying to make out what was the exact mean- 
ing of some of their, to me, dark sayings. I could not 
sleep, though I often tried to, when I got on such a hunt 
after an idea, until I had caught it ; and when I thought 
I had got it, I was not satisfied until I had repeated it 
over and over, until I had put it in language plain enough, 
as I thought, for any boy I knew to comprehend. This was 
a kind of passion with me, and it has stuck by me, for I 
am never easy now, when I am handling a thought, till I 
have bounded it north and bounded it south and bounded it 
east and bounded it west. Perhaps that accounts for the 
characteristic you observe in my speeches, though I never 
put the two things together before.' " But to the speech it- 
self.] 

Fourscore and seven years ago, our fathers 
brought forth on this continent a new nation, con- 
ceived in liberty, and dedicated to the proposition 
that all men are created equal. Now we are engaged 
in a great civil war, testing whether that nation, or 



270 JAMES RUSSELL LOWELL. 

any nation so conceived and so dedicated, can long 
endure. We are met on a great battlefield of that 
war. We have come to dedicate a i^ortion of that 
field as a final resting-place for those who here gave 
their lives that that nation might live. It is alto- 
gether fitting and proper that we should do this. 
But in a larger sense we cannot dedicate, we cannot 
consecrate, we cannot hallow this ground. The brave 
men, living and dead, who struggled here, have conse- 
crated it far above our poor power to add or detract. 
The world will little note, nor long remember, what 
we say here, but it can never forget what they did 
here. It is for us, the living, rather to be dedicated 
here to the unfinished work which they who fought 
here have thus far so nobly advanced. It is rather 
for us to be here dedicated to the great task remain- 
ing before us, — that from these honored dead we take 
increased devotion to that cause for which they gave 
the last full measure of devotion, — that we here 
highly resolve that these dead shall not have died in 
vain, — that this nation, under God, shall have a new 
birth of freedom, — and that government of the peo- 
ple, by the people, for the people, shall not perish 
from the earth. 



THE VISION OF SIR LAUNFAL. 

[Author's Note. — According to the mythology of the 
Romancers, the San Greal, or Holy Gi'ail, was the cup out 
of which Jesus Christ partook of the last supper with his 
disciples. It was brought into England by Joseph of Arima- 
thea, and remained there, an object of pilgrimage and ado- 
ration, for many years, in the keeping of his Imeal descend- 
ants. It was incumbent upon those who had charge of it 



THE VISION OF SIR LAUNFAL. 271 

to be chaste in thought, word, and deed ; but one of the 
keepers having broken this condition, the Holy Grail dis- 
appeared. From that time it was a favorite enterprise of 
the Knights of Arthur's court to go in search of it. Sir 
Galahad was at last successful in finding it, as may be read 
in the seventeenth book of the Romance of King Arthur. 
Tennyson has made Sir Galahad the subject of one of the 
most exquisite of his poems. 

The plot (if I may give that name to anything so slight) 
of the following 23oem is my own, and, to serve its purposes, 
I have enlarged the circle of competition in search of the 
miraculous cup in such a manner as to include not only other 
persons than the heroes of the Round Table, but also a 
period of time subsequent to the date of King Arthur's 
reign.] 



PRELUDE TO PAET FIRST. 

Over his keys the musing organist, 

Beginning doubtfully and far away, 
First lets Ms fingers wander as they list. 

And builds a bridge from Dreamland for his lay : 
Then, as the touch of his loved instrument 

Gives hope and fervor, nearer draws his theme, 
First guessed by faint auroral flushes sent 

Along the wavering vista of his dream. 



Not only around our infancy 

Doth heaven with all its splendors lie ; lo 

9. In allusion to Wordsworth's 

" Heaven lies about us in our infancy," 

in his ode, Intimations of Immortality from Recollections of Early 
Childhood. 



272 JAMES RUSSELL LOWELL. 

Daily, witli souls that cringe and plot, 
We Sinais climb and know it not. 

Over our manhood bend tlie skies ; 

Against our fallen and traitor lives 
The great winds utter prophecies : 15 

With our faint hearts the mountain strives ; 
Its arms outstretched, the druid wood 

Waits with its benedicite ; 
And to our age's drowsy blood 

Still shouts the inspiring sea. * 20 

Earth gets its price for what Earth gives us ; 

The beggar is taxed for a corner to die in, 
The priest hath his fee who comes and shrives us, 

We bargain for the graves we lie in ; 
At the Devil's booth are all things sold, 25 

Each ounce of dross costs its ounce of gold ; 

For a cap and bells our lives we pay. 
Bubbles we buy with a whole soul's tasking : 

'T is heaven alone that is given away, 
'T is only God may be had for the asking ; so 

No price is set on the lavish summer ; 
June may be had by the poorest comer. 

And what is so rare as a day in June ? 

Then, if ever, come perfect days ; 
Then Heaven tries the earth if it be in tune, 35 

And over it softly her warm ear lays : 

27. In the Middle Ages kings and noblemen had in their 
courts jesters to make sport for the company ; as every one 
then wore a dress indicating his rank or occupation, so the jester 
wore a cap hung with bells. The fool of Shakespeare's plays is 
the king's jester at his best. 



THE VISION OF SIR LAUNFAL. 273 

Whether we look, or whether we listen, 
We hear life murmur, or see it glisten ; 
Every clod feels a stir of might, 

An instinct within it that reaches and towers, 40 
And, groping blindly above it for light. 

Climbs to a soul in grass and flowers ; 
The flush of life may well be seen 

Thrilling back over hills and valleys ; 
The cowslip startles in meadows green, 45 

The buttercup catches the sun in its chalice. 
And there 's never a leaf nor a blade too mean 

To be some happy creature's palace ; 
The little bird sits at his door in the sun, 

Atilt like a blossom among the leaves, 50 

And lets his illumined being o'errun 

With the deluge of summer it receives ; 
His mate feels the eggs beneath her wings. 
And the heart in her dumb breast flutters and sings ; 
He sings to the wide world, and she to her nest, — 55 
In the nice ear of Nature which song is the best ? 

Now is the high-tide of the year, 

And whatever of life hath ebbed away 
Comes flooding back with a ripply cheer. 

Into every bare inlet and creek and bay ; eo 

Now the heart is so full that a drop overfills it. 
We are happy now because God wills it ; 
No matter how barren the past may have been, 
'T is enough for us now that the leaves are green ; 
We sit in the warm shade and feel right well 65 

How the sap creeps up and blossoms swell ; 
We may shut our eyes, but we cannot help knowing 
That skies are clear and grass is growing ; 
The breeze comes whispering in our ear, 



274 ' JAMES RUSSELL LOWELL. 

That dandelions are blossoming near, i 

That maize has sprouted, that streams are flowing, 
That the river is bluer than the sky. 
That the robin is plastering his house hard by ; 
And if the breeze kept the good news back, 
For other couriers we should not lack ; i 

We could guess it all by yon heifer's lowing, — 
And hark ! how clear bold chanticleer. 
Warmed with the new wine of the year, 
Tells all in his lusty crowing ! 

Joy comes, grief goes, we know not how ; s 

Everything is happy now. 

Everything is upward striving ; 
'T is as easy now for the heart to be true 
As for grass to be green or skies to be blue, — 

'T is the natural way of living : 8 

Who knows whither the clouds have fled ? 

In the unscarred heaven they leave no wake ; 
And the eyes forget the tears they have shed. 

The heart forgets its sorrow and ache ; 
The soul partakes of the season's youth, s 

And the sulphurous rifts of passion and woe 
Lie deep 'neath a silence pure and smooth. 

Like burnt-out craters healed with snow. 
What wonder if Sir Launfal now 
Kemembered the keeping of his vow ? 9 



PART FIRST. 



" My golden spurs now bring to me. 
And bring to me my richest mail, 



THE VISION OF SIR LA UNFA L. 275 

For to-morrow I go over land and sea 

In search of the Holy Grail ; 
Shall never a bed for me be spread, loo 

Nor shall a pillow be under my head, 
Till I begin my vow to keep ; 
Here on the rushes will I sleep, 
And perchance there may come a vision true 
Ere day create the world anew." 105 

Slowly Sir Launfal's eyes grew dim, 

Slumber fell like a cloud on him. 
And into his soul the vision flew. 

II. 

The crows flapped over by twos and threes, 

In the pool drowsed the cattle up to their knees, no 

The little birds sang as if it were 

The one day of summer in all the year, 
And the very leaves seemed to sing on the trees : 
The castle alone in the landscape lay 
Like an outpost of winter, dull and gray : U5 

'T was the proudest hall in the North Countree, 
And never its gates might opened be. 
Save to lord or lady of high degree ; 
Summer besieged it on every side, 
But the churlish stone her assaults defied ; 120 

She could not scale the chilly wall, 
Though around it for leagues her pavilions tall 
Stretched left and right. 
Over the hills and out of sight ; 

Green and broad was every tent, 125 

And out of each a murmur went 
Till the breeze fell off at night. 



276 JAMES RUSSELL LOWELL. 

in. 

The drawbridge dropped with a surly clang, 
And through the dark arch a charger sprang, 
Bearing Sir Launfal, the maiden knight, 130 

In his gilded mail, that flamed so bright 
It seemed the dark castle had gathered all 
Those shafts the fierce sun had shot over its wall 

In his siege of three hundred summers long. 
And, binding them all in one blazing sheaf, 135 

Had cast them forth : so, young and strong. 
And lightsome as a locust-leaf. 
Sir Launfal flashed forth in his unscarred mail, 
To seek in all climes for the Holy Grail. 

IV. 

It was morning on hill and stream and tree, ho 

And morning in the young knight's heart ; 

Only the castle moodily 

Eebuffed the gifts of the sunshine free, 
And gloomed by itself apart ; 

The season brimmed all other things up 145 

Full as the rain fills the pitcher-plant's cup. 

V. 

As Sir Launfal made morn through the darksome gate, 

He was 'ware of a leper, crouched by the same. 
Who begged with his hand and moaned as he sate ; 

And a loathing over Sir Launfal came ; 150 

The sunshine went out of his soul with a thrill. 

The flesh 'neath his armor 'gan shrink and crawl, 
And midway its leap his heart stood still 

Like a frozen waterfall ; 
For this man, so foul and bent of stature, 155 



THE VISION OF SIR LAUNPAL. 277 

Rasped harshly against his dainty nature, 

And seemed the one blot on the summer morn, — 

So he tossed him a piece of gold in scorn. 

VI. 
The leper raised not the gold from the dust : 
" Better to me the poor man's crust, leo 

Better the blessing of the poor, 
Though I turn me empty from his door ; 
That is no true alms which the hand can hold ; 
He gives nothing but worthless gold 

Who gives from a sense of duty ; i65 

But he who gives but a slender mite. 
And gives to that which is out of sight. 

That thread of the all-sustaining Beauty 
Which runs through all and doth all unite, — 
The hand cannot clasp the whole of his alms, no 

The heart outstretches its eager palms. 
For a god goes with it and makes it store 
To the soul that was starving in darkness before." 



PRELUDE TO PART SECOND. 

Down swept the chill wind from the mountain peak. 
From the snow five thousand summers old ; i75 

On open wold and hill-top bleak 
It had gathered all the cold. 

And whirled it like sleet on the wanderer's cheek : 

It carried a shiver everywhere 

174. Note the different moods that are indicated by the two 
preUides. The one is of June, the other of snow and winter. 
By these preludes the poet, like an organist, strikes a key which 
he holds in the subsequent parts. 



278 JAMES RUSSELL LOWELL. 

From tlie unleaf ed boughs and pastures bare ; iso 

The little brook heard it and built a roof 

'Neath which he could house him, winter-proof ; 

All night by the white stars' frosty gleams 

He groined his arches and matched his beams ; 

Slender and clear were his crystal spars i85 

As the lashes of light that trim the stars ; 

He sculptured every summer delight 

In his halls and chambers out of sight ; 

Sometimes his tinkling waters slipt 

Down through a frost-leaved forest-crypt, 190 

Long, sparkling aisles of steel-stemmed trees 

Bending to counterfeit a breeze ; 

Sometimes the roof no fretwork knew 

But silvery mosses that downward grew ; 

Sometimes it was carved in sharp relief 195 

With quaint arabesques of ice-fern leaf ; 

Sometimes it was simply smooth and clear 

For the gladness of heaven to shine through, and 

here 
He had caught the nodding bulrush-tops 
And hung them thickly with diamond-drops, 200 

That crystalled the beams of moon and sun, 
And made a star of every one : 
No mortal builder's most rare device 
Could match this winter-palace of ice ; 
'T was as if every image that mirrored lay 205 

In his depths serene through the summer day, 
Each fleeting shadow of earth and sky. 
Lest the happy model should be lost, 

203. The Empress of Russia, Catherine II., in a magnificent 
freak, built a palace of ice, which was a nine-days' wonder. 
Cowper has given a poetical description of it in The Taskj Book 
V. lines 131-176. 



THE VISION OF SIR LAUNFAL. 279 

Had been mimicked in fairy masonry 

By the elfin builders of the frost- , 210 

Within the hall are song and laughter, 

The cheeks of Christmas grow red and jolly, 
And sprouting is every corbel and rafter 

With lightsome green of ivy and holly; 
Through the deep gulf of the chimney wide 215 

Wallows the Yule-log's roaring tide ; 
The broad flame-pennons droop and flap 

And belly and tug as a flag in the wind ; 
Like a locust shrills the imprisoned sap, 

Hunted to death in its galleries blind ; 220 

And swift little troops of silent sparks. 

Now pausing, now scattering away as in fear. 
Go threading the soot-forest's tangled darks 

Like herds of startled deer. 
But the wind without was eager and sharp, 225 

Of Sir Launfal's gray hair it makes a harp. 
And rattles and wrings 
The. icy strings. 

Singing, in dreary monotone, 

A Christmas carol of its own, 230 

Whose burden still, as he might guess, 

^as — " Shelterless, shelterless, shelterless ! " 
The voice of the seneschal flared like a torch 
As he shouted the wanderer away from the porch, 

216. The Yule-log was anciently a huge log burned at the 
feast of Juul (pronounced Yule) by our Scandinavian ancestors 
in honor of the god Thor. Juul-tid (Yule-time) corresponded 
in time to Christmas tide, and when Christian festivities took the 
place of pagan, many ceremonies remained. The great log, still 
called the Yule-log, was dragged in and burned in the fireplace 
after Thor had been forgotten. 



280 JAMES RUSSELL LOWELL. 

And he sat in the gateway and saw all night 235 

The great hall-fire, so cheery and bold, 
Through the window-slits of the castle old, 

Build out its piers of ruddy light, 
Against the drift of the cold. 



PART SECOND. 



There was never a leaf on bush or tree, 240 

The bare boughs rattled shudderingly ; 
The river was dumb and could not speak, 

For the weaver Winter its shroud had spun. 
A single crow on the tree-top bleak 

From his shining feathers shed off the cold sun ; 245 
Again it was morning, but shrunk and cold. 
As if her veins were sapless and old. 
And she rose up decrepitly 
For a last dim look at earth and sea. 



II. 



250 



Sir Launfal turned from his own hard gate. 

For another heir in his earldom sate ; 

An old, bent man, worn out and frail. 

He came back from seeking the Holy Grail ; 

Little he recked of his earldom's loss. 

No more on his surcoat was blazoned the cross, 255 

But deep in his soul the sign he wore. 

The badge of the suffering and the poor. 

III. 

Sir Launfal's raiment thin and spare 
Was idle mail 'gainst the barbed air. 



THE VISION OF SIR LAUNFAL, 281 

For it was just at the Christmas time ; 260 

So he mused, as he sat, of a sunnier clime, 

And sought for a shelter from cold and snow 

In the light and warmth of long-ago ; 

He sees the snake-like caravan crawl 

O'er the edge of the desert, black and small, 265 

Then nearer and nearer, till, one by one, 

He can count the camels in the sun, 

As over the red-hot sands they pass 

To where, in its slender necklace of grass. 

The little spring laughed and leapt in the shade, 270 

And with its own self like an infant played. 

And waved its signal of palms. 

IV. 

" For Christ's sweet sake, I beg an alms ; " — 

The happy camels may reach the spring. 

But Sir Launfal sees only the grewsome thing, 275 

The leper, lank as the rain-blanched bone. 

That cowers beside him, a thing as lone 

And white as the ice-isles of Northern seas 

In the desolate horror of his disease. 



And Sir Launfal said, — "I behold in thee 280 

An image of Him who died on the tree ; 

Thou also hast had thy crown of thorns, — 

Thou also hast had the world's buffets and scorns, — 

And to thy life were not denied 

The wounds in the hands and feet and side ; 285 

Mild Mary's Son, acknowledge me ; 

Behold, through him, I give to Thee ! " 



282 JAMES RUSSELL LOWELL. 



VI. 

Then the soul of the leper stood up in his eyes 

And looked at Sir Launfal, and straightway he 
Remembered in what a haughtier guise 290 

He had flung an alms to leprosie, 
When he girt his young life up in gilded mail 
And set forth in search of the Holy Grail. 
The heart within him was ashes and dust ; 
He parted in twain his single crust, 295 

He broke the ice on the streamlet's brink, 
And gave the leper to eat and drink : 
'T was a mouldy crust of coarse brown bread, 

'T was water out of a wooden bowl, — 
Yet with fine wheaten bread was the leper fed, 300 

And 't was red wine he drank with his thirsty soul. 

VII. 

As Sir Launfal mused with a downcast face, 

A light shone round about the place ; 

The leper no longer crouched at his side, 

But stood before him glorified, 305 

Shining and tall and fair and straight 

As the pillar that stood by the Beautiful Gate, — 

Himself the Gate whereby men can 

Enter the temple of God in Man. 

VIII. 

His words were shed softer than leaves from the 
pine, 310 

And they fell on Sir Launfal as snows on the brine. 
That mingle their softness and quiet in one 
With the shaggy unrest they float down upon ; 
And the voice that was calmer than silence said. 



THE VISION OF SIR LAUNFAL. 283 

" Lo, it is I, be not afraid ! 315 

In many climes, without avail, 

Thou hast spent thy life for the Holy Grail ; 

Behold, it is here, — this cup which thou 

Didst fill at the streamlet for Me but now ; 

This crust is My body broken for thee, 320 

This water His blood that died on the tree ; 

The Holy Supper is kept, indeed, 

In whatso we share with another's need : 

Not what we give, but what we share, — 

For the gift without the giver is bare ; 325 

Who gives himself with his alms feeds three, — 

Himself, his hungering neighbor, and Me." 

IX. 

Sir Launfal awoke as from a swound : — 

" The Grail in my castle here is found ! 

Hang my idle armor up on the wall, 330 

Let it be the spider's banquet-hall ; 

He must be fenced with stronger mail 

Who would seek and find the Holy Grail." 

X. 

The castle gate stands open now. 

And the wanderer is welcome to the hall 335 

As the hangbird is to the elm-tree bough : 

No longer scowl the turrets tall. 
The Summer's long siege at last is o'er ; 
When the first poor outcast went in at the door. 
She entered with him in disguise, 340 

And mastered the fortress by surprise ; 
There is no spot she loves so well on ground. 
She lingers and smiles there the whole year round ; 



284 JAMES RUSSELL LOWELL. 

The meanest serf on Sir Launfal's land 

Has hall and bower at his command ; 

And there 's no poor man in the North Countree 

But is lord of the earldom as much as he. 



RALPH WALDO EMERSON. 



BIOGRAPHICAL SKETCH. 

Ralph Waldo Emerson was born in Boston, May 25, 
1803. His father, his grandfather, and his great-grand- 
father were all ministers, and, indeed, on both his father's 
and mother's side he belongs to a continuous line of minis- 
terial descent from the seventeenth century. At the time of 
his birth, his father, the Rev. William Emerson, was minis- 
ter of the First Church congregation, but on his death a few 
years afterward, Ralph Waldo Emerson, a boy of seven, 
went to live in the old manse at Concord, where his grand- 
father had lived when the Concord fight occurred. The old 
manse was afterward the home at one time of Hawthorne, 
who wrote there the stories which he gathered into the vol- 
ume, Mosses from a7i Old Ma7ise. 

Emerson was graduated at Harvard in 1821, and after 
teaching a year or two gave himself to the study of divinity. 
From 1827 to 1832 he preached in Unitarian churches, and 
was for four years a colleague pastor in the Second Church 
in Boston. He then left the ministry and afterward devoted 
himself to literature. He travelled abroad in 1833, in 1847, 
and again in 1872, making friends among the leading think- 
ers during his first journey, and confirming the friendships 
when again in Europe ; with the exception of these three 
journeys and occasional lecturing tours in the United States, 
he lived quietly at Concord until his death, April 27, 1882. 

He had delivered several special addresses, and in his 
early manhood was an important lecturer in the Lyceum 



286 RALPH WALDO EMERSON. 

courses which were so popular, especially in New England, 
forty years ago, but his first published book was Nature, in 

1839. Subsequent prose writings were his Essays, under 
that title, and in several volumes with specific titles, Repre- 
sentative Men, and English Traits. In form the prose is 
either the oration or the essay, with one exception. Eng- 
lish Traits records the observations of the writer after his 
first two journeys to England ; and while it may loosely be 
classed among essays, it has certain distinctive features 
which separate it from the essays of the same writer; there 
is in it narrative, reminiscence, and description, which make 
it more properly the note-book of a philosophic traveller. 

It may be said of his essays as well as of his dehberate 
orations that the writer never was wholly unmindful of an 
audience ; he was conscious always that he was not merely 
delivering his mind, but speaking directly to men. One is 
aware of a certain pointedness of speech which turns the 
writer into a speaker, and the printed words into a sounding 
voice. 

He wrote poems when in college, but his first publication 
of verse was through The Dial, a magazine established in 

1840, and the representative of a knot of men and women 
of whom Emerson was the acknowledged or unacknow- 
ledged leader. The first volume of his poems was pub- 
lished in 1847, and included those by which he is best 
known, as The Problem, The Sphinx, The Rhodora, The 
Humble Bee, Hymn Sung at the Compjletioii of the Con- 
cord Monument. After the establishment of the Atlantic 
Monthly in 1857, he contributed to it both prose and poetry, 
and verses published in the early numbers, mere enigmas to 
some, profound revelations to others, were fruitful of discus- 
sion and thought ; his second volume of poems, May Day 
and other Pieces, was not issued until 1867. Since then a 
volume of his collected poetry has appeared, containing most 
of those published in the two volumes, and a few in addi- 
tion. We are told, however, that the published vrritings of 



BIOGRAPHICAL SKETCH. 287 

Emerson bear but small proportion to the unpublished. 
Many lectures have been delivered, but not printed ; many- 
poems written, and a few read, which have never been pub- 
lished. The inference from this, borne out by the marks 
upon what has been published, is that Mr. Emerson set a 
high value upon literature, and was jealous of the preroga- 
tive of the poet. He is frequently called a seer, and this 
old word, indicating etymologically its original intention, is 
applied well to a poet who saw into nature and human life 
with a spiritual power which made him a marked man in 
his own time, and one destined to an unrivalled place in lit- 
erature. He fulfilled Wordsworth's lines : — 

" With an eye made quiet by the power 
Of harmony, and the deep power of joy, 
We see into the life of things." 



BEHAVIOR. 

Grace, Beauty, and Caprice 

Build this golden portal ; 

Graceful women, chosen men, 

Dazzle every mortal : 

Their sweet and lofty countenance 

His enchanting food ; 

He need not go to them, their forms 

Beset his solitude. 

He looketh seldom in their face. 

His eyes explore the ground. 

The green grass is a looking-glass 

Whereon their traits are found. 

Little he says to them, 

So dances his heart in his breast, 

Their tranquil mien bereaveth him 

Of wit, of words, of rest. 

Too weak too win, to fond to shun 

The tyrants of his doom, 

The much-deceived Endymion 

Slips behind a tomb. 

The soul which animates Nature is not less signifi- 
cantly published in the figure, movement, and gesture 
of animated bodies, than in its last vehicle of articulate 
speech. This silent and subtile language is Manners ; 
not wliat^ but liow. Life expresses. A statue has no 
tongue, and needs none. Good tableaux do not need 
declamation. Nature tells every secret once. Yes, 
but in man she tells it all the time, by form, attitude, 
gesture, mien, face, and parts of the face, and by the 
whole action of the machine. The visible carriage or 
action of the individual, as resulting from his organi- 
zation and his will combined, we call manners. What 
are they but thought entering the hands and feet, con- 
trolling the movements of the body, the speech and 
behavior ? 



BEHAVIOR. 289 

There is always a best way of doing everything, if 
it be to boil an egg. Manners are the happy ways of 
doing things ; each once a stroke of genius or of love, 
— now repeated and hardened into usage. They form 
at last a rich varnish, with which the routine of life is 
washed, and its details adorned. If they are super- 
ficial, so are the dewdrops which give such a depth to 
the morning meadows. Manners are very communi- 
cable ; men catch them from each other. Consuelo, 
in the romance,^ boasts of the lessons she had given 
the nobles in manners, on the stage ; and, in real life, 
Talma ^ taught Napoleon the arts of behavior. Genius 
invents fine manners, which the baron and the baron- 
ess copy very fast, and, by the advantage of a palace, 
better the instruction. They stereotype the lesson 
they have learned into a mode. 

The power of manners is incessant, — an element 
as unconcealable as fire. The nobility cannot in any 
country be disguised, and no more in a republic or a 
democracy than in a kingdom. No man can resist 
their influence. There are certain manners which are 
learned in good society, of that force, that, if a person 
have them, he or she must be considered, and is every- 
where welcome, though without beauty, or wealth, or 
genius. Give a boy address and accomplishments, 
and you give him the mastery of palaces and fortunes 
where he goes. He has not the trouble of earning or 
owning them ; they solicit him to enter and possess. 
We send girls of a timid, retreating disposition to the 
boarding-school, to the riding-school, to the ball-room, 
or wheresoever they can come into acquaintance and 
nearness of leading persons of their own sex ; where 

^ Of the same name, by George Sand. 
2 A celebrated actor. 



290 RALPH WALDO EMERSON. 

they might learn address, and see it near at hand. 
The power of a woman of fashion to lead, and also to 
daunt and repel, derives from their belief that she 
knows resources and behaviors not known to them ; 
but when these have mastered her secret, they learn to 
confront her, and recover their self-possession. 

Every day bears witness to their gentle rule. People 
who would obtrude, now do not obtrude. The medi- 
ocre circle learns to demand that which belongs to a 
hieh state of nature or of culture. Your manners are 
always under examination, and by committees little 
suspected, — a police in citizens' clothes, — but are 
awarding or denying you very high prizes when you 
least think of it. 

We talk much of utilities, but 't is our manners that 
associate us. In hours of business, we go to him who 
knows, or has, or does this or that which we want, and 
we do not let our taste or feeling stand in the way. 
But this activity over, we return to the indolent state, 
and wish for those we can be at ease with ; those who 
will go where we go, whose manners do not offend us, 
whose social tone chimes with ours. When we reflect 
on their persuasive and cheering force ; how they rec- 
ommend, prepare, and draw people together ; how, in 
all clubs, manners make the members ; how manners 
make the fortune of the ambitious youth ; that, for the 
most part, his manners marry him, and, for the most 
part, he marries manners ; when we think what keys 
they are, and to what secrets ; what high lessons and 
inspiring tokens of character they convey ; and what 
divination is required in us, for the reading of this 
fine telegraph, we see what range the subject has, and 
what relations to convenience, power, and beauty. 

Their first service is very low, — when they are tlie 



BEHA VIOR. 291 

minor morals : but 't is the beginning of civility, — to 
make us, I mean, endurable to each other. We prize 
them for their rough-plastic, abstergent force ; to get 
people out of the quadruped state ; to get them washed, 
clothed, and set up on end ; to slough their animal 
husks and habits ; compel them to be clean ; overawe 
their spite and meanness, teach them to stifle the base, 
and choose the generous expression, and make them 
know how much happier the generous behaviors are. 

Bad behavior the laws cannot reach. Society is 
infested with rude, cynical, restless, and frivolous per- 
sons who prey upon the rest, and whom a public opinion 
concentrated into good manners — forms accepted by 
the sense of all — can reach : the contradictors and 
railers at public and private tables, who are like ter- 
riers, who conceive it the duty of a dog of lionor to 
growl at any passer-by, and do the honors of the house 
by barking him out of sight ; — I have seen men who 
neigh like a horse when you contradict them, or say 
something which they do not understand : — then the 
overbold, who make their own invitation to your 
hearth ; the persevering talker, who gives you his 
society in large, saturating doses ; the pitiers of them- 
selves, — a perilous class ; the frivolous Asmodeus, 
who relies on you to find him in ropes of sand to 
twist ; the monotones ; in short, every stripe of ab- 
surdity ; — these are social inflictions which the magis- 
trate cannot cure or defend you from, and which must 
be intrusted to the restraining force of custom, and 
proverbs, and familiar rules of behavior impressed on 
young people in their school-days. 

In ■ the hotels on the banks of the Mississippi, they 
print, or used to print, among the rules of the house, 
that " no gentleman can be permitted to come to the 



292 RALPH WALDO EMERSON. 

public table without his coat ; " and in the same coun- 
try, in the pews of the churches, little placards plead 
with the worshipper against the fury of expectoration. 
Charles Dickens self-sacrificingiy undertook the refor- 
mation of our American manners in unspeakable par- 
ticulars. I think the lesson was not quite lost ; that 
it held bad manners up, so that the churls could see 
the deformity. Unhappily, the book had its own de- 
formities. It ought not to need to print in a reading- 
room a caution to strangers not to speak loud ; nor to 
persons who look over fine engravings, that they 
should be handled like cobwebs and butterflies' wings ; 
nor to persons who look at marble statues, that they 
shall not smite them with canes. But, even in the 
perfect civilization of this city, such cautions are not 
quite needless in the Athenaeum and City Library. 

Manners are factitious, and grow out of circum- 
stance as well as out of character. If you look at the 
pictures of patricians and of peasants, of different 
periods and countries, you will see how well they 
match the same classes in our towns. The mod'ern 
aristocrat not only is well drawn in Titian's Venetian 
doges, and in Roman coins and statues, but also in the 
pictures which Commodore Perry brought home of 
dignitaries in Japan. Broad lands and great interests 
not only arrive to such heads as can manage them, but 
form manners of power. A keen eye, too, will see 
nice gradations of rank, or see in the manners the 
degree of homage the party is wont to receive. A 
prince who is accustomed every day to be courted and 
deferred to by the highest grandees, acquires a corre- 
sponding expectation, and a becoming mode of receiv- 
ing and replying to this homage. 

There are always exceptional people and modes. 



BEHA VIOR. 293 

English grandees affect to be farmers. Claverhouse 
is a fop, and, under the finish of dress, and levity of 
behavior, hides the terror of his war. But Nature 
and Destiny are honest, and never fail to leave their 
mark, to hang out a sign for each and for every qual- 
ity. It is much to conquer one's face, and perhaps 
the ambitious youth thinks he has got the whole secret 
when he has learned that disengaged manners are 
commanding. Don't be deceived by a facile exterior. 
Tender men sometimes have strong wills. We had, 
in Massachusetts, an old statesman, who had sat all 
his life in courts and in chairs of state, without over- 
coming an extreme irritability of face, voice, and bear- 
ing ; when he spoke, his voice would not serve him ; it 
cracked, it broke, it wheezed, it piped : little cared he ; 
he knew that it had got to pipe, or wheeze, or screech 
his argument and his indignation. When he sat down, 
after speaking, he seemed in a sort of fit, and held on 
to his chair with both hands ; but underneath all this 
irritability was a puissant will, firm and advancing, 
and a memory in which lay in order and method like 
geologic strata every fact of his history, and under the 
control of his will. 

Manners are partly factitious, but, mainly, there 
must be capacity for culture in the blood. Else all 
culture is vain. The obstinate prejudice in favor of 
blood, which lies at the base of the feudal and mon- 
archical fabrics of the Old World, has some reason 
in common experience. Every man — mathematician, 
artist, soldier, or merchant — looks with confidence 
for some traits and talents in his own child, which he 
would not dare to presume in the child of a stranger. 
The Orientalists are very orthodox on this point. 
"Take a thorn-bush," said the emir Abdel-Kader, 



294 RALPH WALDO EMERSON, 

*' and sjii'inkle it for a whole year with water ; it will 
yield nothing but thorns. Take a date-tree, leave it 
without culture, and it will always produce dates. 
Nobility is the date-tree, and the Arab populace is a 
bush of thorns." 

A main fact in the history of manners is the won- 
derful expressiveness of the human body. If it were 
made of glass, or of air, and the thoughts were written 
on steel tablets within, it could not publish more truly 
its meaning than now. Wise men read very sharply 
all your private history in your look and gait and be- 
havior. The whole economy of nature is bent on ex- 
pression. The tell-tale body is all tongues. Men are 
like Geneva watches with crystal faces which expose 
the whole movement. They carry the liquor of life 
flowing up and down in these beautiful bottles, and 
announcing to the curious how it is with them. The 
face and eyes reveal what the spirit is doing, how old 
it is, what aims it has. The eyes indicate the antiquity 
of the soul, or through how many forms it has already 
ascended. It almost violates the proprieties, if we 
say above the breath here, what the confessing eyes 
do not hesitate to utter to every street passenger. 

Man cannot fix his eye on the sun, and so far seems 
im23erfect. In Siberia, a late traveller found men 
who could see the satellites of Jupiter with their un- 
armed eye. In some respects the animals excel us. 
The birds have a longer sight, beside the advantage 
by their wings of a higher observatory. A cow can 
bid her calf, by secret signal, probably of the eye, to 
run away, or to lie down and hide itself. The jockeys 
say of certain horses, that " they look over the whole 
ground." The out-door life, and hunting, and labor, 
give equal vigor to the human eye. A farmer looks 



BEHA VIOR. 295 

out at you as strong as the horse ; his eye-beam is like 
the stroke of a staff. An eye can threaten like a 
loaded and levelled gun, or can insult like hissing or 
kicking ; or, in its altered mood, by beams of kind- 
ness, it can make the heart dance with joy. 

The eye obeys exactly the action of the mind. 
When a thought strikes us, the eyes fix, and remain 
gazing at a distance ; in enumerating the names of 
persons or of countries, as France, Germany, Spain, 
Turkey, the eyes wink at each new name. There 
is no nicety of learning sought by the mind which 
the eyes do not vie in acquiring. " An artist," said 
Michel Angelo, '' must have his measuring tools not 
in the hand, but in the eye ; " and there is no end to 
the catalogue of its performances, whether in indolent 
vision (that of health and beauty), or in strained vi- 
sion (that of art and labor). 

Eyes are bold as lions, — roving, running, leaping, 
here and there, far and near. They speak all lan- 
guages. They wait for no introduction ; they are no 
Englishmen ; ask no leave of age or rank ; they re- 
spect neither poverty nor riches, neither learning nor 
power, nor virtue, nor sex, but intrude, and come 
again, and go through and through you, in a moment 
of time. What inundation of life and thought is dis- 
charged from one soul into another, through them ! 
The glance is natural magic. The mysterious com- 
munication established across a house between two 
entire strangers, moves all the springs of wonder. 
The communication by the glance is in the greatest 
part not subject to the control of the will. It is the 
bodily symbol of identity of nature. We look into 
the eyes to know if this other form is another self, 
and the eyes will not lie, but make a faithful confes- 



296 RALPH WALDO EMERSON. 

sion what inhabitant is there. The, revelations are 
sometimes terrific. The confession of a low, usurping 
devil is there made, and the observer shall seem to 
feel the stirring of owls, and bats, and horned hoofs, 
where he looked for innocence and simplicity. 'T is 
remarkable, too, that the spirit that appears at the 
windows of the house does at once invest himself in 
a new form of his own, to the mind of the beholder. 

The eyes of men converse as much as their tongues, 
with the advantage, that the ocular dialect needs no 
dictionary, but is understood all the world over. 
When the eyes say one thing, and the tongue another, 
a practised man relies on the language of the first. 
If the man is off his centre, the eyes show it. You 
can read in the eyes of your companion, whether 
your argument hits him, though his tongue will not 
confess it. There is a look by which a man shows he 
is going to say a good thing, and a look when he has 
said it. Vain and forgotten are all the fine offers 
and offices of hospitality, if there is no holiday in the 
eye. How many furtive inclinations avowed by the 
eye, though dissembled by the lips ! One comes away 
from a company, in which, it may easily happen, he 
has said nothing, and no important remark has been 
addressed to him, and yet, if in sympathy with the 
society, he shall not have a sense of this fact, such a 
stream of life has been flowing into him, and out from 
him, through the eyes. There are eyes, to be sure, 
that give no more admission into the man than blue- 
berries. Others are liquid and deep, — wells that a 
man might fall into ; — others are aggressive and de- 
vouring, seem to call out the police, take all too much 
notice, and require crowded Broadways, and the se- 
curity of millions, to protect individuals against them. 



BEHA VI OR. 297 

The military eye I meet, now darkly sparkling under 
clerical, now under rustic, brows. Tis the city of 
Lacedaemon ; 't is a stack of bayonets. There are 
asking eyes, asserting eyes, prowling eyes ; and eyes 
full of fate, — some of good, and some of sinister, 
omen. The alleged power to charm down insanity, or 
ferocity in beasts, is a power behind the qjq. It must 
be a victory achieved in the will, before it can be sig- 
nified in the eye. 'T is very certain that each man 
carries in his eye the exact indication of his rank in 
the immense scale of men, and we are always learning 
to read it. A complete man should need no auxilia- 
ries to his personal j)resence. Whoever looked on 
him would consent to his will, being certified that his 
aims were generous and universal. The reason why 
men do not obey us, is because they see the mud at 
the bottom of our eye. 

If the organ of sight is such a vehicle of power, the 
other features have their own. A man finds room in 
the few square inches of the face for the traits of all 
his ancestors ; for the expression of all his history, 
and his wants. The sculptor, and Winckelmann, and 
Lavater, will tell you how significant a feature is the 
nose ; how its form expresses strength or weakness 
of will and good or bad temper. The nose of Ju- 
lius Caesar, of Dante, and of Pitt suggest " the ter- 
rors of the beak." What refinement, and what 
limitations, the teeth betray ! " Beware you don't 
laugh," said the wise mother, " for then you show all 
your faults." 

Balzac left in manuscript a chapter, which he called 
" Theorie de la demarche.,'' in which he says : '' The 
look, the voice, the respiration, and the attitude or 
walk are identical. But, as it has nq^ been given to 



298 RALPH WALDO EMERSON. 

man, the power to stand guard, at once, over these 
four different simultaneous expressions of his thought, 
watch that which one speaks out the truth, and you 
will know the whole man." 

Palaces interest us mainly in the exhibition of man- 
ners, which in the idle and expensive society dwelling 
in them are raised to a high art. The maxim of 
courts is that manner is power. A calm and resolute 
bearing, a polished speech, and embellishment of tri- 
fles, and the art of hiding all uncomfortable feeling, 
are essential to the courtier, and Saint Simon, and 
Cardinal de Retz, and Roederer, and an encyclojDsedia 
of Ilemoires will instruct you, if you wish, in those 
potent secrets. Thus, it is a point of pride with kings 
to remember faces and names. It is reported of one 
prince, that his head had the air of leaning down- 
wards, in order not to humble the crowd. There are 
people who come in ever like a child with a piece of 
good news. It was said of the late Lord Holland, 
that he always came down to breakfast with the air 
of a man who had just met with some signal good for- 
tune. In Notre Dame the grandee took his place 
on the dais, with the look of one who is thinking of 
something else. But we must not peep and eavesdrop 
at palace-doors. 

Fine manners need the support of fine manners in 
others. A scholar may be a well-bred man, or he may 
not. The enthusiast is introduced to polished scholars 
in society, and is chilled and silenced by finding him- 
self not in their element. They all have somewhat 
which he has not, and, it seems, ought to have. But 
if he finds the scholar apart from his companions, it 
is then the enthusiast's turn, and the scholar has no 
defence, but must deal on his terms. Now they must 



BEHA VIOR. 299 

fight the battle out on their private strength. What 
is the talent of that character so common, — the suc- 
cessful man of the world, — in all marts, senates, and 
drawing-rooms ? Manners : manners of power ; sense 
to see his advantage, and manners up to it. See him 
approach his man. He knows that troops behave as 
they are handled at first ; — that is his cheap secret ; 
just what happens to every two persons who meet on 
any affair, one instantly perceives that he has the key 
of the situation, that his will comprehends the other's 
will, as the cat does the mouse, and he has only to use 
courtesy, and furnish good-natured reasons to his vic- 
tim to cover up the chain, lest he be shamed into re- 
sistance. 

The theatre in which this science of manners has a 
formal importance is not with us a court, but dress- 
circles, wherein, after the close of the day's business, 
men and women meet at leisure, for mutual entertain- 
ment, in ornamented drawing-rooms. Of course, it 
has every variety of attraction and merit ; but, to 
earnest persons, to youths or maidens who have great 
objects at heart, we cannot extol it highly. A well- 
dressed, talkative company, where each is bent to 
amuse the other, — yet the high-born Turk who came 
hither fancied that every woman seemed to be suffer- 
ing for a chair ; that all talkers were brained and ex- 
hausted by the de-oxygenated air ; it spoiled the best 
persons : it put all on stilts. Yet here are the secret 
biographies written and read. The aspect of that 
man is repulsive ; I do not wish to deal with him. 
The other is irritable, shy, and on his guard. The 
youth looks humble and manly : I choose him. Look 
on this woman. There is not beauty, nor brilliant say- 
ings, nor distinguished power to serve you ; but all see 



300 RALPH WALDO EMERSON. 

her gladly ; her whole air and impression are health- 
ful. Here come the sentimentalists, and the invalids. 
Here is Elise, who caught cold in coming into the 
world, and has always increased it since. Here are 
creep-mouse manners ; and thievish manners. " Look 
at Northcote," said Fuseli ; " he looks like a rat that 
has seen a cat." In the shallow company, easily ex- 
cited, easily tired, here is the columnar Bernard : the 
Alleghanies do not express more repose than his be- 
havior. Here are the sweet, following eyes of Cecile : 
it seemed always that she demanded the heart. No- 
thing can be more excellent in kind than the Corin- 
thian grace of Gertrude's manners, and yet Blanche, 
who has no manners, has better manners than she ; 
for the movements of Blanche are the sallies of a 
spirit which is sufficient for the moment, and she can 
afford to express every thought by instant action. 

Manners have been somewhat cynically defined to 
be a contrivance of wise men to keep fools at a dis- 
tance. Fashion is shrewd to detect those who do not 
belong to her train, and seldom wastes her attentions. 
Society is very swift in its instincts, and, if you do not 
belong to it, resists and sneers at you ; or quietly 
drops you. The first weapon enrages the party at- 
tacked ; the second is still more effective, but is not 
to be resisted, as the date of the transaction is not 
easily found. People grow up and grow old under 
this infliction, and never suspect the truth, ascribing 
the solitude which acts on them very injuriously to 
any cause but the right one. 

The basis of good manners is self-reliance. Neces- 
sity is the law of all who are not self-possessed. Those 
who are not self-possessed obtrude and pain us. Some 
men appear to feel that they belong to a Pariah caste. 



BEHA VI OR. 301 

They fear to offend, they bend and apologize, and 
walk through life with a timid step. 

As we sometimes dream that we are in a well- 
dressed company without any coat, so Godfrey acts 
ever as if he suffered from some mortifying circum- 
stance. The hero should find himself at home, wher- 
ever he is ; should impart comfort by his own security 
and good-nature to all beholders. The hero is suffered 
to be himself. A person of strong mind comes to per- 
ceive that for him an immunity is secured so long as 
he renders to society that service wdiich is native and 
proper to him, — an immunity from all the observ- 
ances, yea, and duties, which society so tyrannically im- 
poses on the rank and file of its members. " Euripi- 
des," says Aspasia, " has not the fine manners of 
Sophocles : " but," she adds, good-humoredly, '' the 
movers and masters of our souls have surely a right 
to throw out their limbs as carelessly as they please on 
the world that belongs to them, and before the crea- 
tures they have animated." ^ 

Manners require time, as nothing is more vulgar 
than haste. Friendship should be surrounded with 
ceremonies and respects, and not crushed into corners. 
Friendship requires more time than poor busy men 
can usually command. Here comes to me Roland, 
with a delicacy of sentiment leading and inwrapping 
him like a divine cloud or holy ghost. 'T is a great 
destitution to both that this should not be entertained 
with large leisures, but contrariwise should be balked 
by importunate affairs. 

But through this lustrous varnish, the reality is ever 
shining. 'T is hard to keep the what from breaking 
through this pretty painting of the hou\ The core 
^ Laudor, Pericles and Aspasia. 



302 RALPH WALDO EMERSON. 

will come to the surface. Strong will and keen per- 
ception overpower old manners, and create new ; and 
the thought of the present moment has a greater value 
than all the past. In persons of character we do not 
remark manners, because of their instantaneousness. 
We are surprised by the thing done, out of all power 
to watch the way of it. Yet nothing is more charming 
than to recognize the great style which runs through 
the action of such. People masquerade before us in 
their fortunes, titles, offices, and connections, as aca- 
demic or civil presidents, or senators, or professors, or 
great lawyers, and impose on the frivolous, and a good 
deal on each other, by these fames. At least, it is a 
point of prudent good manners to treat these reputa- 
tions tenderly, as if they were merited. But the sad 
realist knows these fellows at a glance, and they know 
him ; as when in Paris the chief of the police enters a 
ball-room, so many diamonded pretenders shrink and 
make themselves as inconspicuous as they can, or give 
him a supplicating look as they pass. " I had re- 
ceived," said a sibyl, — "I had received at birth the 
fatal gift of penetration ; " and these Cassandras are 
always born. 

Manners impress as they indicate real power. A 
man who is sure of his point carries a broad and con- 
tented expression, which everybody reads. And you 
cannot rightly train one to an air and manner except 
by making him the kind of man of whom that manner 
is the natural expression. Nature forever puts a pre- 
mium on reality. What is done for effect is seen to 
be done for effect ; what is done for love is felt to be 
done for love. A man inspires affection and honor, 
because he was not lying in wait for these. The 
things of a man for which we visit him, were done in 



BEHA VI OR. 303 

the dark and the cold. A little integrity is better 
than any career. So deep are the sources of this sur- 
face-action, that even the size of your companion seems 
to vary with his freedom of thought. Not only is he 
larger, when at ease, and his thoughts generous, but 
everything around him becomes variable with expres- 
sion. No carpenter's rule, no rod and chain, will 
measure the dimensions of any house or house-lot : go 
into the house : if the proprietor is constrained and 
deferring, 't is of no importance how large his house, 
how beautiful his grounds, — you quickly come to the 
end of all ; but if the man is self-possessed, happy, and 
at home, his house is deep-founded, indefinitely large 
and interesting, the roof and dome buoyant as the sky. 
Under the humblest roof, the commonest person in 
plain clothes sits there massive, cheerful, yet formi- 
dable like the Egyptian colossi. 

Neither Aristotle, nor Leibnitz, nor Junius, nor 
Champollion has set down the grammar-rules of this 
dialect, older than Sanscrit ; but they who cannot yet 
read English, can read this. Men take each other's 
measure, when they meet for the first time, — and 
every time they meet. How do they get this rapid 
knowledge, even before they speak, of each other's 
power and dispositions ? One would say that the per- 
suasion of their speech is not in what they say, — or, 
that men do not convince by their argument, — but by 
their personality, by who they are, and what they said 
and did heretofore. A man already strong is listened 
to, and everything he says is applauded. Another 
opposes him with sound argument, but the argument 
is scouted, until by and by it gets into the mind of 
some weighty person ; then it begins to tell on the 
community. 



304 RALPH WALDO EMERSON. 

Self-reliance is the basis of behavior, as it is the 
guaranty that the powers are not squandered in too 
much demonstration. In this country, where school 
education is universal, we have a superficial culture, 
and a profusion of reading and writing and expres- 
sion. We parade our nobilities in poems and ora- 
tions, instead of working them up into happiness. 
There is a whisper out of the ages to him who can 
understand it, — " Whatever is known to thyself 
alone has always very great value." There is some 
reason to believe that, when a man does not write his 
poetry, it escapes by other vents through him, instead 
of the one vent of writing; clings to his form and 
manners, whilst poets have often nothing poetical 
about them except their verses. Jacobi said, that 
" when a man has fully expressed his thought, he has 
somewhat less possession of it." One would say, the 
rule is, — AVhat a man is irresistibly urged to say, 
helps him and us. In explaining his thought to others, 
he explains it to himself : but when he opens it for 
show, it corrupts him. 

Society is the stage on which manners are shown ; 
novels are their literature. Novels are the journal or 
record of manners ; and the new importance of these 
boaks derives from the fact that the novelist begins to 
penetrate the surface, and treat this part of life more 
worthily. The novels used to be all alike, and had 
a quite vulgar tone. The novels used to lead us on to 
a foolish interest in the fortunes of the boy and girl 
they described. The boy was to be raised from a 
humble to a high position. He was in want of a wife 
and a castle, and the object of the story was to supply 
him with one or both. We watched sympathetically, 
step by step, his climbing, until, at last, the point is 



BEHA VI OR. 305 

gained, tlie wedding day is fixed, and we follow the 
gala procession home to the bannered portal, when the 
doors are slammed in our face, and the poor reader is 
left outside in the cold, not enriched by so much as an 
idea, or a virtuous impulse. 

But the victories of character are instant, and vic- 
tories for all. Its greatness enlarges all. We are 
fortified by every heroic anecdote. The novels are as 
useful as Bibles, if they teach you the secret, that the 
best of life is conversation, and the greatest success is 
confidence, or perfect understanding between sincere 
people. 'T is a French definition of friendship, rien 
que s'entendre.) good understanding. The highest 
compact we can make with our fellow is, — " Let there 
be truth between us two for evermore." That is the 
charm in all good novels, as it is the charm in all good 
histories, that the heroes mutually understand, from 
the first, and deal loyally and with a profound trust in 
each other. It is sublime to feel and say of another, 
I need never meet, or speak, or write to him : we need 
not reinforce ourselves, or send tokens of remem- 
brance : I rely on him as on myself : if he did thus, or 
thus, I know it was right. 

In all the superior people I have met, I notice di- 
rectness, truth spoken more truly, as if everything of 
obstruction, of malformation, had been trained away. 
What have they to conceal ? What have they to ex- 
hibit ? Between simple and noble persons there is al- 
ways a quick intelligence : they recognize at sight, and 
meet on a better ground than the talents and skills 
they may chance to possess, namely, on sincerity and 
uprightness. For, it is not what talents or genius 
a man has, but how he is to his talents, that consti- 
tutes friendship and character. The man that stands 



306 RALPH WALDO EMERSON. 

by himself, the universe stands by him also. It is re- 
lated of the monk Basle, that, being excommunicated 
by the Pope, he was, at his death, sent in charge of an 
angel to find a fit place of suffering in hell ; but, such 
was the eloquence and good-humor of the monk, that 
wherever he went he was received gladly, and civilly 
treated, even by the most uncivil angels : and, when 
he came to discourse with them, instead of contradict- 
ing or forcing him, they took his part, and adopted 
his manners ; and even good angels came from far, to 
see him, and take up their abode with him. The an- 
gel that was sent to find a place of torment for him 
attempted to remove him to a worse pit, but with no 
better success ; for such was the contented spirit of the 
monk, that he found something to praise in every 
place and company, though in hell, and made a kind 
of heaven of it. At last the escorting angel returned 
with his prisoner to them that sent him, saying that 
no phlegethon could be found that would burn him ; 
for that in whatever condition, Basle remained incor- 
rigibly Basle. The legend says, his sentence was re- 
mitted, and he was allowed to go into heaven, and 
was canonized as a saint. 

There is a stroke of magnanimity in the correspon- 
dence of Bonaparte with his brother Joseph, when the 
latter was King of Spain, and complained that he 
missed in Napoleon's letters the affectionate tone 
which had marked their childish correspondence. " I 
am sorry," replies Napoleon, "you think you shall 
find your brother again only in the Elysian Fields. 
It is natural, that at forty, he should not feel towards 
you as he did at twelve. But his feelings towards you 
have greater truth and strength. His friendship has 
the features of his mind." 



BEHA VIOR. 307 

How much we forgive in those who yield us the 
rare spectacle of heroic manners ! We will pardon 
them the want of books, of arts, and even of the gen- 
tler virtues. How tenaciously we remember them ! 
Here is a lesson which I brought along with me in 
boyhood from the Latin School, and which ranks with 
the best of Roman anecdotes. Marcus Scaurus was 
accused by Quintus Varius Hispanus, that he had ex- 
cited the allies to take arms against the Kepublic. 
But he, full of firmness and gravity, defended himself 
in this manner : *' Quintus Yarius Hispanus alleges 
that Marcus Scaurus, President of the Senate, excited 
the allies to arms ; Marcus Scaurus, President of the 
Senate, denies it. There is no witness. Which do 
you believe, Romans ? " " Utri CTeditis, Quirites f " 
When he had said these words, he was absolved by 
the assembly of the people. 

I have seen manners that make a similar impression 
with personal beauty ; that give the like exhilaration, 
and refine us like that; and, in memorable experi- 
ences, they are suddenly better than beauty, and make 
that superfluous and ugly. But they must be marked 
by fine perception, the acquaintance with real beauty. 
They must always show self-control : you shall not be 
facile, apologetic, or leaky, but king over your word ; 
and every gesture and action shall indicate power at 
rest. Then they must be inspired by the good heart. 
There is no beautifier of complexion, or form, or be- 
havior, like the wish to scatter joy and not pain 
around us. 'T is good to give a stranger a meal, or a 
night's lodging. 'T is better to be hospitable to his 
good meaning and thought, and give courage to a 
companion. We must be as courteous to a man as 
we are to a picture, which we are willing to give the 



308 RALPH WALDO EMERSON. 

advantage of a good light. SiDecial precepts are not 
to be thought of : the talent of well-doing contains 
them all. Every hour will show a duty as paramount 
as that of my whim just now ; and yet I will write it, 
— that there is one topic peremptorily forbidden to 
all well-bred, to all rational mortals, namely, their 
distempers. If you have not slept, or if you have 
sle23t, or if you have headache, or sciatica, or leprosy, 
or thunder-stroke, I beseech you, by all angels, to hold 
your peace, and not pollute the morning, to which all 
the housemates bring serene and pleasant thoughts, by 
corruption and groans. Come out of the azure. 
Love the day. Do not leave the sky out of your land- 
scape. The oldest and the most deserving person 
should come very modestly into any newly awaked 
company, respecting the divine communications, out of 
which all must be j)i'esumed to have newly come. An 
old man, who added an elevating culture to a large 
experience of life, said to me : " When you come into 
the room, I think I will study how to make humanity 
beautiful to you." 

As respects the delicate question of culture, I do 
not think that any other than negative rules can be 
laid down. For positive rules, for suggestion. Nature 
alone inspires it. Who dare assume to guide a youth, 
a maid, to perfect manners ? — the golden mean is so 
delicate, difficult, — '■ say frankly, unattainable. What 
finest hands would not be clumsy to sketch the genial 
precepts of the young girl's demeanor ? The chances 
seem infinite against success ; and yet success is con- 
tinually attained. There must not be secondariness, 
and 't is a thousand to one that her air and manner 
will at once betray that she is not primary, but that 
there is some other one or many of her class, to whom 



BOSTON HYMN. 309 

she habitually postpones herself. But Nature lifts 
her easily, and without knowing it, over these impos- 
sibilities, and we are continually surprised with graces 
and felicities not only unteachable, but undescribable. 



BOSTON HYMN. 

READ IN MUSIC HALL, JANUARY 1, 1863. 

The word of the Lord by night 
To the watching Pilgrims came, 
As they sat by the seaside, 
And filled their hearts with flame. 

God said, I am tired of kings, 5 

I suffer them no more ; 

Up to my ear the morning brings 

The outrage of the poor. 

Think ye I made this ball 
A field of havoc and war, lo 

Where tyrants great and tyrants small 
Might harry the weak and poor ? 

My angel, — his name is Freedom, — 
Choose him to be your king ; 
He shall cut pathways east and west is 

And fend you with his wing. 

Lo ! I uncover the land 

Which I hid of old time in the West, 

As the sculptor uncovers the statue 

When he has wrought his best ; 20 



310 RALPH WALDO EMERSON. 

I show Columbia, of the rocks 
Which dip their foot in the seas 
And soar to the air-borne flocks 
Of clouds and the boreal fleece. 

I will divide my goods ; 25 

Call in the wretch and slave : 
None shall rule but the humble, 
And none but Toil shall have. 

I will have never a noble, 
No lineage counted great ; 30 

Fishers and choppers and j)loughmen 
Shall constitute a state. 

Go, cut down trees in the forest 

And trim the straightest boughs ; 

Cut down trees in the forest 35 

And build me a wooden house. 

Call the people together, 

The young men and the sires. 

The digger in the harvest field, 

Hireling and him that hires ; 4g 

And here in a pine state-house 
They shall choose men to rule 
In every needful faculty, 
In church and state and school. 

Lo, now ! if these poor men 45 

Can govern the land and sea 
And make just laws below the sun, 
As planets faithful be. 



BOSTON HYMN. 311 

And ye shall succor men ; 
'T is nobleness to serve ; so 

Help them who cannot help again : 
Beware from right to swerve. 

I break your bonds and masterships, 
And I unchain the slave : 
Free be his heart and hand henceforth 55 
As wind and wandering wave. 

I cause from every creature 

His proper good to flow : 

As much as he is and doeth, 

So much he shall bestow. ^ 

But, laying hands on another 
To coin his labor and sweat. 
He goes in pawn to his victim 
For eternal years in debt. 

To-day unbind the captive, » 

So only are ye unbound ; 

Lift up a people from the dust. 

Trump of their rescue, sound ! 

Pay ransom to the owner 
And fill the bag to the brim. ^o 

Who is the owner ? The slave is owner, 
And ever was. Pay him. 

O North ! give him beauty for rags, 
And honor, O South ! for his shame ; 
Nevada ! coin thy golden crags 75 

With Freedom's ima^e and name. 



312 RALPH WALDO EMERSON. 

Up ! and the dusky race 

That sat in darkness long, — 

Be swift their feet as antelopes, 

And as behemoth strong. so 

Come, East and West and North, 
By races, as snow-flakes. 
And carry my purj)ose forth, 
Which neither halts nor shakes. 

My wiU fulfilled shall be, 85 

For, in daylight or in dark, 
My thunderbolt has eyes to see 
His way home to the mark. 



DANIEL WEBSTER. 



BIOGRAPHICAL SKETCH. 

" In the last year of the Revolutionary War, on the 18th 
of January, 1782, Daniel Webster was born, in the home 
which his father had established on the outskirts of civiUza- 
tion.^ If the character and situation of the place, and the 
circumstances under which he passed the first years of his 
life, might seem adverse to the early cultivation of his ex- 
traordinary talent, it still cannot be doubted that they pos- 
sessed influences favorable to elevation and strength of char- 
acter. The hardships of an infant settlement and border 
life, the traditions of a long series of Indian wars, and of 
two mighty national contests, in which an honored parent 
had borne his part, the anecdotes of Fort William Henry, 
of Quebec, of Bennington, of West Point, of Wolfe and 
Stark and Washington, the great Iliad and Odyssey of 
American Independence, — this was the fireside entertain- 
ment of the long winter evenings of the secluded village 
home. . . . 

" Something that was called a school was kept for two or 
three months in the winter, frequently by an itinerant, too 
often a pretender, claiming only to teach a little reading, 
writing, and ciphering, and wholly incompetent to give any 
valuable assistance to a clever youth in learning either. 

" Such as the village school was, Mr. Webster enjoyed its 
advantages, if they could be called by that name. It was, 
1 Salisbury (now Franklin), N. H. 



314 DANIEL WEBSTER. 

however, of a migratory character. When it was near his 
father's residence it was easy to attend ; but it was sonie- 
times in a distant part of the town, and sometimes in another 
town. . . . Poor as these opportunities of education were, 
they were bestowed on Mr. Webster more Hberally than on 
his brothers. He showed a greater eagerness for learning ; 
and he was thought of too frail a constitution for any robust 
pursuit. ... It is probable that the best part of his educa- 
tion was derived from the judicious and experienced father, 
and the strong-minded, affectionate, and ambitious mo- 
ther." 1 

His attitude toward books is well shown by the following 
extract from his AutobiograiDhy : "I remember that my 
father brought home from some of the lower towns Pope's 
Essay on Man, published in a sort of pamphlet. I took it, 
and very soon could repeat it from beginning to end. We 
had so few books, that to read them once or twice was no- 
thing. We thought they were all to be got by heart." 

In 1796 Webster went to Exeter Academy, but poverty 
at home caused his withdrawal in February, 1797. He then 
studied in the neighboring town of Boscawen, under the 
Rev. Samuel Wood, whose entire charge for board and in- 
struction was $1.00 a week. In 1797 he entered Dart- 
mouth College, where he was graduated in 1801, after four 
years of hard and telling work ; his winter vacations were 
spent in teaching school. 

Webster next studied law, but the need of money by him- 
self and his brother Ezekiel compelled him to accept an 
offer to take charge of an academy at Fryeburg, Maine, at 
a salary of about a dollar a day ; he supported himself by 
copying deeds, and was thus able to save all his salary as a 
fund for the further education of himself and his brother. 

^ See Biographical Memoir, by Edward Everett. From this 
Memoir, and from Lodge's Life of Webster, in the American 
Statesmen Series, most of the material of this sketch has been 
taken. 



BIOGRAPHICAL SKETCH. 315 

He began the study of law again in September, 1802, and 
in the spring of 1805 was admitted to the bar at Boston. 
He opened an office at Boscawen, N. H., but in September, 
1807, moved to Portsmouth, where he at once rose to the 
head of his profession, and for nine successive years had a 
large though not very lucrative practice. 

In 1808 he was married to Miss Grace Fletcher of Hop- 
kinton, Mass. 

In November, 1812, he was elected a member of the Na- 
tional House of Representatives, where his great talents 
were at once recognized ; he was reelected in 1814. From 
1823 until his death in 1852, with the exception of about 
two years, he was constantly in public life, as congressman, 
senator, and secretary of state. 

In 1816 he moved to Boston and soon took a position in 
the law above which no one has ever risen in this country. 
He had a choice of the best business of the whole country. 
He distinguished himself especially in the realm of Con- 
stitutional Law, by which the rights of States and individ- 
uals granted by the Constitution were defined. In 1818 he 
argued the famous Dartmouth College case, and secured a 
decision declaring unconstitutional, on the ground of impair- 
ing the obligation of a contract, an act of the New Hamp- 
shire Legislature altering the charter of the college. He was 
thereafter retained in almost every important case argued 
before the Supreme Court at Washington. 

On December 22, 1820, the two hundredth anniversary 
of the landing of the Pilgrims, he delivered his famous 
Plinnouth Oration, the first of a series of noble, patriotic 
addresses which showed him to be the greatest orator Amer- 
ica ever produced. On June 17, 1825, he delivered an ora- 
tion at the laying of the corner-stone of the Bunker Hill 
Monument, and on August 2, 1826, his eulogy on the Ex- 
Presidents John Adams and Thomas Jefferson, who died 
within a few hours of each other, on July 4, 1826, the 
fiftieth anniversary of the Declaration of Independence. In 



316 DANIEL WEBSTER. 

1830, he made, in the United States Senate, his celebrated 
Reply to Hayne, in which he repelled insinuations against 
New England, and argued against the right of nullification. 

In 1850 he delivered in the Senate Chamber, at Wash- 
ington, what is known as his Seventh of March Speech. 
Henry Cabot Lodge says, in his Life of Webster, that at this 
time Webster's place was at the head of a new party based 
on the principles which he had himself formulated against the 
extension of slavery ; that he did not change his party, and 
therefore had to change his opinions. In the Seventh of 
March Speech, he spoke in favor of enforcing the Fugitive 
Slave Law, and against the Wilmot Proviso, by which 
slavery was to be excluded from all territory thereafter ac- 
quired. He depicted at length the grievances of the South, 
and said but little about those of the North. Mr. George 
T. Curtis, in his Biography, says that a great majority of 
Webster's constituents, if not of the whole North, disap- 
proved of this speech. 

Webster as an orator had no equal, and as a lawyer no 
superior. His reputation as a statesman, though for the 
most part grand and glorious, was, in the eyes of many, 
dhnmed by his change of base on the slavery question. His 
personal appearance was very remarkable ; he had a swarthy 
complexion and straight black hair ; his head was large and 
of noble shape, with a broad and lofty brow ; his features 
were finely cut and full of massive strength, and his eyes 
were dark and deep set. Mr. Lodge says, " There is no 
man in all history who came into the world so equipped 
physically for speech." 

Webster died at Marshfield, Mass., October 24, 1852, 
while holding the office of secretary of state under Presi- 
dent Fillmore. 



THE BUNKER HILL MONUMENT. 

AN ADDRESS DELIVERED AT THE LAYING OP THE CORNER- 
STONE OF THE BUNKER HILL MONUMENT AT CHARLES- 
TOWN, MASS., ON THE 17TH OF JUNE, 1825. 

[As early as 1776, some steps were taken toward the com- 
memoration of the Battle of Bunker Hill and the fall of 
General Warren, who was buried upon the hill the day after 
the action. The Massachusetts Lodge of Masons, over 
which Warren had presided, applied to the provisional gov- 
ernment of Massachusetts for permission to take up his re- 
mains and to bury them with the usual solemnities. The 
council granted this request, on condition that it should be 
carried into effect in such a manner that the government of 
the Colony might have an opportunity to erect a monument 
to his memory. A funeral procession was had, and a eulogy 
on General Warren was delivered by Perez Morton, but no 
measures were taken toward building a monument. 

A resolution was adopted by the Congress of the United 
States on the 8th of April, 1777, directing that monuments 
should be erected to the memory of General Warren, in 
Boston, and of General Mercer, at Fredericksburg ; but this 
resolution has remained to the present time unexecuted. 

On the 11th of November, 1794, a committee was ap- 
pointed by King Solomon's Lodge, "at Charlestown,^ to take 
measures for the erection of a monument to the memory of 
General Joseph Warren, at the expense of the lodge. This 
resolution was promptly carried into effect. The land for 

1 General Warren, at the time of his decease, was Grand 
Master of the Masonic Lodges in America. 



318 DANIEL WEBSTER. 

tills purpose was presented to the lodge by the Hon. James 
Russell, of Charlestown, and it was dedicated with appro- 
priate ceremonies on the 2d of December, 1794. It was a 
wooden pillar of the Tuscan order, eighteen feet in height, 
raised on a pedestal eight feet square, and of an elevation 
of ten feet from the ground. The pillar was surmounted 
by a gilt urn. An appropriate inscription was placed on the 
south side of the pedestal. 

In February, 1818, a committee of the legislature of 
Massachusetts was appointed to consider the expediency of 
building a monument of American marble to the memory 
of General Warren, but this proposal was not carried into 
effect. 

As the half-century from the date of the battle drew to- 
ward a close, a stronger feeling of the duty of commemo- 
rating it began to be awakened in the community. Among 
those who from the first manifested the greatest interest in 
the subject was the late William Tudor, Esq. He expressed 
the wish, in a letter still preserved, to see upon the battle- 
ground " the noblest monument in the world," and he was 
so ardent and persevering in urging the project, that it has 
been stated that he first conceived the idea of it. The steps 
taken in execution of the project, from the earliest private 
conferences among the gentlemen first engaged in it to its 
final completion, are accurately sketched by Mr. Richard 
Frothingham, Jr., in his valuable History of the Siege of 
Boston. All the material facts contained in this note are 
derived from his chapter on the Bunker Hill Monument. 
After giving an account of the organization of the society, 
the measures adopted for the collection of funds, and the 
deliberations on the form of the monument, Mr. Frothing- 
ham proceeds as follows : — 

" It was at this stage of the enterprise that the directors 
proposed to lay the corner-stone of the monument, and 
ground was broken (June 7th) for this purpose. As a 
mark of respect to the liberality and patriotism of King 



THE BUNKER HILL MONUMENT. 319 

Solomon's Lodge, they invited the Grand Master of the 
Grand Lodge of Massachusetts to perform the ceremony. 
They also invited General Lafayette to accompany the 
President of the Association, Hon. Daniel Webster, and 

assist in it. , . •£ ^ u„ 

"This celebration was unequalled m magnificence by 
anything of the kind that had been seen in New England. 
The morning proved propitious. The air was cool the sky 
was clear, and timely showers the previous day had bright- 
ened the vesture of nature into its loveliest hue. Dehgiited 
thousands flocked into Boston to bear a part in the proceed- 
ings, or to witness the spectacle. At about ten o clock a 
pxocession moved from the State House towards Bunker 
Hill. The military, in their fine uniforms, formed the van. 
About two hundred veterans of the Revolution, of whom 
forty were survivors of the battle, rode in barouches next 
to the escort. These venerable men, the relics of a past 
generation, with emaciated frames, tottering limbs, and 
trembling voices, constituted a touching spectacle, home 
wore, as honorable decorations, their old fighting equip- 
ments, and some bore the scars of stiU more honorable 
wounds. Glistening eyes constituted their answer to the en- 
thusiastic cheers of the grateful multitudes who lined their 
pathwav and cheered their progress. To this patriot band 
succeeded the Bunker Hill Monument Association, ihen 
the Masonic fraternity, in their splendid regalia, thousands 
in number. Then Lafayette, continually welcomed by tokens 
of love and gratitude, and the invited guests. Then a long 
array of societies, with their various badges and banners. 
It was a splendid procession, and of such length that the 
front nearly reached Charlestown Bridge ere the rear had 
left Boston Common. It proceeded to Breed's Hill, where 
the Grand Master of the Freemasons, the President of the 
Monument Association, and General Lafayette performed 
the ceremony of laying the corner-stone, in the presence of 
a vast concourse of people." 



320 DANIEL WEBSTER. 

The procession then moved to a spacious amphitheatre 
on the northern declivity of the hill, where the following 
address was delivered by Mr. Webster, in the presence of 
as great a multitude perhaps as was ever assembled within 
the sound of a human voice.] 

This uncounted multitude before me and around 
me proves the feeling which the occasion has excited. 
These thousands of human faces, glowing with sym- 
pathy and joy, and from the impulses of a common 
gratitude turned reverently to heaven in this spacious 
temple of the firmament, proclaim that the day, the 
place, and the purpose of our assembling have made 
a deep impression on our hearts. 

If, indeed, there be anything in local association fit 
to affect the mind of man, we need not strive to re- 
press the emotions which agitate us here. We are 
among the sepulchres of our fathers. We are on 
ground distinguished by their valor, their constancy, 
and the shedding of their blood. We are here, not 
to fix an uncertain date in our annals, nor to draw 
into notice an obscure and unknown spot. If our 
humble purpose had never been conceived, if we our- 
selves had never been born, the 17th of June, 1775, 
would have been a day on which all subsequent his- 
tory would have poured its light, and the eminence 
where we stand a point of attraction to the eyes of 
successive generations. But we are Americans. We 
live in what may be called the early age of this great 
continent ; and we know that our posterity, through 
all time, are here to enjoy and suffer the allotments 
of humanity. We see before us a probable train of 
great events ; we know that our own fortunes have 
been happily cast ; and it is natural, therefore, that 



THE BUNKER HILL MONUMENT. 321 

we should be moved by the contemplation of occur- 
rences which have guided our destiny before many of 
us were born, and settled the condition in wliich we 
should pass that portion of our existence which God 
allows to men on earth. 

We do not read even of the discovery of this con- 
tinent, without feeling something of a personal inter- 
est in the event ; without being reminded how much 
it has affected our own fortunes and our own exist- 
ence. It would be still more unnatural for us, there- 
fore, than for others, to contemplate with unaffected 
minds that interesting, I may say that most touch- 
ing and pathetic scene, when the great discoverer of 
America stood on the deck of his shattered bark, the 
shades of night falling on the sea, yet no man sleep- 
ing ; tossed on the billows of an unknown ocean, yet 
the stronger billows of alternate hope and despair 
tossing his own troubled thoughts ; extending forward 
his harassed frame, straining westward his anxious 
and eager eyes, till Heaven at last granted him a mo- 
ment of rapture and ecstasy, in blessing his vision 
with the sight of the unknown world. 

Nearer to our times, more closely connected with 
our fates, and therefore still more interesting to our 
feelings and affections, is the settlement of our own 
country by colonists from England. We cherish every 
memorial of these worthy ancestors ; we celebrate their 
patience and fortitude ; we admire their daring enter- 
prise ; we teach our children to venerate their piety ; 
and we are justly proud of being descended from 
men who have set the world an example of founding 
civil institutions on the great and united principles of 
human freedom and human knowledge. To us, their 
children, the story of their labors and sufferings can 



322 DANIEL WEBSTER. 

never be without interest. We shall not stand un- 
moved on the shore of Plymouth, while the sea con- 
tinues to wash it ; nor will our brethren in another 
early and ancient Colony forget the place of its first 
establishment, till their river shall cease to flow by it.^ 
No vigor of youth, no maturity of manhood, will lead 
the nation to forget the spots where its infancy was 
cradled and defended. 

But the great event in the history of the continent, 
which we are now met here to commemorate, that 
prodigy of modern times, at once the wonder and the 
blessing of the world, is the American Revolution. 
In a day of extraordinary prosperity and happiness, 
of high national honor, distinction, and power, we are 
brought together, in this place, by our love of country, 
by our admiration of exalted character, by our grati- 
tude for signal services and patriotic devotion. 

The Society whose organ I am ^ was formed for the 
purpose of rearing some honorable and durable monu- 
ment to the memory of the early friends of American 
Independence. They have thought that for this ob- 
ject no time could be more propitious than the present 
prosperous and peaceful period ; that no place could 

1 An interesting account of the voyage of the early emigrants 
to the Maryland Colony, and of its settlement, is given in the 
official report of Father White, written probably within the first 
month after the landing at St. Mary's. The original Latin man- 
uscript is still preserved among the archives of the Jesuits at 
Rome. The Ark and the Dove are remembered with scarcely 
less interest by the descendants of the sister colony, than is the 
Mayflower in New England, which thirteen years earlier, at the 
same season of the year, bore thither the Pilgrim Fathers. 

2 Mr. Webster was at this time President of the Bunker Hill 
Monument Association, chosen on the death of Governor John 
Brooks, the first President. 



THE BUNKER HILL MONUMENT. 323 

claim preference over this memorable spot ; and that 
no day could be more auspicious to the undertaking, 
than the anniversary of the battle which was here 
fouo'ht. The foundation of that monument we have 
now laid. With solemnities suited to the occasion, 
with prayers to Almighty God for his blessing, and in 
the midst of this cloud of witnesses, we have begun 
the work. We trust it will be prosecuted, and that, 
springing from a broad foundation, rising high in mas- 
sive solidity and unadorned grandeur, it may remain 
as long as Heaven permits the works of man to last, 
a fit emblem, both of the events in memory of which 
it is raised, and of the gratitude of those who have 
reared it. 

We know, indeed, that the record of illustrious ac- 
tions is most safely deposited in the imiversal remem- 
brance of mankind. We know, that if we could cause 
this structure to ascend, not only till it reached the 
skies, but till it pierced them, its broad surfaces could 
still contain but part of that which, in an age of know- 
ledge, hath already been spread over the earth, and 
which history charges itself with making known to all 
future times. We know that no inscription on entab- 
latures less broad than the earth itself can carry in- 
formation of the events we commemorate where it has 
not already gone ; and that no structure, which shall 
not outlive the duration of letters and knowledge 
among men, can prolong the memorial. But our ob- 
ject is, by this edifice, to show our own deep sense of 
the value and importance of the achievements of our 
ancestors ; and, by presenting this work of gratitude 
to the eye, to keep alive similar sentiments, and to 
foster a constant regard for the principles of the Rev- 
olution. Human beings are composed, not of reason 



324 DANIEL WEBSTER. 

only, but of imagination also, and sentiment ; and that 
is neither wasted nor misapplied which is appropri- 
ated to the purjiose of giving right direction to senti- 
ments, and opening proper springs of feeling in the 
heart. Let it not be supposed that our object is to 
perpetuate national hostility, or even to cherish a mere 
military spirit. It is higher, purer, nobler. We con- 
secrate our work to the spirit of national indepen- 
dence, and we wish that the light of peace may rest 
upon it for ever. We rear a memorial of our convic- 
tion of that unmeasured benefit which has been con- 
ferred on our own land, and of the happy influences 
which have been produced, by the same events, on the 
general interests of mankind. We come, as Ameri- 
cans, to mark a spot which must forever be dear to us 
and our posterity. We wish that whosoever, in all 
coming time, shall turn his eye hither, may behold 
that the j)lace is not undistinguished where the first 
great battle of the Revolution was fought. We wish 
that this structure may proclaim the magnitude and 
importance of that event to every class and every age. 
We wish that infancy may learn the purpose of its 
erection from maternal lips, and that weary and with- 
ered age may behold it, and be solaced by the recol- 
lections which it suggests. We wish that labor may 
look up here, and be j)roud, in the midst of its toil. 
We wish that, in those days of disaster, which, as they 
come upon all nations, must be expected to come upon 
us also, desj)onding patriotism may turn its eyes hith- 
erward, and be assured that the foundations of our 
national power are still strong. We wish that this 
column, rising towards heaven among the pointed 
spires of so many temples dedicated to God, may con- 
tribute also to produce, in all minds, a pious feeling 



THE BUNKER HILL MONUMENT. 325 

of dependence and gratitude. We wish, finally, that 
the last object to the sight of him who leaves his na- 
tive shore, and the first to gladden him who revisits it, 
may be something which shall remind him of the lib- 
erty and the glory of his country. Let it rise ! let it 
rise, till it meet the sun in his coming ; let the earliest 
light of the morning gild it, and parting day linger 
and play on its summit. 

We live in a most extraordinary age. Events so 
various and so important that they might crowd and 
distinguish centuries are, in our times, compressed 
within the compass of a single life. When has it 
happened that history has had so much to record, in 
the same term of years, as since the 17th of June, 
1775 ? Our own revolution, which, under other cir- 
cumstances, might itself have been expected to occa- 
sion a war of half a century, has been achieved; 
twenty-four sovereign and independent States erected ; 
and a general government established over them, so 
safe, so wise, so free, so practical, that we might well 
wonder its establishment should have been accom- 
plished so soon, were it not far the greater wonder 
that it should have been established at all. Two or 
three millions of people have been augmented to 
twelve, the great forests of the West prostrated be- 
neath the arm of successful industry, and the dwellers 
on the banks of the Ohio and the Mississippi become 
the fellow-citizens and neighbors of those who culti- 
vate the hills of New England.i ^e have a commerce 
1 That which was spoken of figuratively in 1825 has, in the 
lapse of a quarter of a century, by the introduction of railroads 
and telegraphic lines, become a reality. It is an interesting 
circumstance, that the first railroad on the Western Continent 
was constructed for the purpose of accelerating the erection of 
this monument. — Edward Everett, in 1850. 



326 DANIEL WEBSTER. 

that leaves no sea unexplored ; navies which take no 
law from superior force ; revenues adequate to all the 
exigencies of government, ahnost without taxation ; 
and peace with all nations, founded on equal rights 
and mutual respect. 

Europe, within the same period, has been agitated 
by a mighty revolution, which, while it has been felt 
in the individual condition and happiness of almost 
every man, has shaken to the centre her political fab- 
ric, and dashed against one another thrones which 
had stood tranquil for ages. On this, our continent, 
our own example has been followed, and colonies have 
sprung up to be nations. Unaccustomed sounds of 
liberty and free government have reached us from be- 
yond the track of the sun ; and at this moment the 
dominion of European power in this continent, from 
the place where we stand to the south pole, is annihil- 
ated for ever.i 

In the mean time, both in Europe and America, 
such has been the general progress of knowledge, such 
the improvement in legislation, in commerce, in the 
arts, in letters, and, above all, in liberal ideas and the 
general spirit of the age, that the whole world seems 
changed. 

Yet, notwithstanding that this is but a faint ab- 
stract of the things which have hajDpened since the day 
of the battle of Bunker Hill, we are but fifty years 
removed from it ; and we now stand here to enjoy all 
the blessings of our own condition, and to look abroad 
on the brightened prospects of the world, while we 
still have among us some of those who were active 
agents in the scenes of 1775, and who are now here, 

^ See President Monroe's Message to Congress, in 1823, and 
Mr. Webster's speech on the Panama Mission, in 1826. 



THE BUNKER HILL MONUMENT. 327 

from every quarter of New England, to visit once more, 
and under circumstances so affecting, I had almost 
said so overwhelming, this renowned theatre of their 
courage and patriotism. 

Venerable men ! you have come down to us from a 
former generation. Heaven, has bounteously length- 
ened out your lives, that you might behold this joyous 
day. You are now where you stood fifty years ago, 
this very hour, with your brothers and your neighbors? 
shoulder to shoulder, in the strife for your country. 
Behold, how altered ! The same heavens are indeed 
over your heads ; the same ocean rolls at your feet ; 
but all else how changed ! You hear now no roar of 
hostile cannon, you see no mixed volumes of smoke and 
flame rising from burning Charlestown. The ground 
strewed with the dead and the dying ; the impetuous 
charge ; the steady and successful repulse ; the loud 
call to repeated assault ; the summoning of all that is 
manly to repeated resistance ; a thousand bosoms 
freely and fearlessly bared in an instant to whatever 
of terror there may be in war and death ; — all these 
you have witnessed, but you witness them no more. 
All is peace. The heights of yonder metropolis, 
its towers and roofs, which you then saw filled with 
wives and children and countrymen in distress and 
terror, and looking with unutterable emotions for the 
issue of the combat, have presented you to-day with 
the sight of its whole happy population, come out to 
welcome and greet you with a universal jubilee. Yon- 
der proud ships, by a felicity of position appropriately 
lying at the foot of this mount, and seeming fondly to 
cling around it, are not means of annoyance to you, 
but your country's own means of distinction and 



B28 DANIEL WEBSTER. 

defence.^ All is peace ; and God has granted you 
tliis sight of your country's happiness, ere you slumber 
in the grave. He has allowed you to behold and to 
partake the reward of your patriotic toils ; and he has 
allowed us, your sons and countrymen, to meet you 
here, and in the name of the present generation, in the 
name of your country, in the name of liberty, to thank 
you! 

But, alas ! you are not all here ! Time and the 
sword have thinned your ranks. Prescott, Putnam, 
Stark, Brooks, Read, Pomeroy, Bridge ! our eyes seek 
for you in vain amid this broken band. You are 
gathered to your fathers, and live only to your coun- 
try in her grateful remembrance and your own bright 
example. But let us not too much grieve, that you 
have met the common fate of men. You lived at 
least long enough to know that your work had been 
nobly and successfully accomplished. You lived to 
see your country's independence established, and to 
sheathe your swords from war. On the light of Lib- 
erty you saw arise the light of Peace, like 

*' another morn, 
Risen on mid-noon ; " 

and the sky on which you closed your eyes was cloud- 
less. 

But, ah ! Him ! the first great martyr in this great 
cause ! Him ! the premature victim of his own self- 
devoting heart ! Him ! the head of our civil councils, 
and the destined leader of our military bands, whom 
nothing brought hither but the unquenchable fire of 
his own spirit ! Him ! cut off by Providence in the 

^ It is necessary to inform those only who are unacquainted 
with the localities, that the United States Navy Yard at 
Charlestown is situated at the base of Bunker Hill. 



THE BUNKER HILL MONUMENT. 329 

hour of overwhelming anxiety and thick gloom ; fall- 
ing ere he saw the star of his country rise ; pouring 
out his generous blood like water, before he knew 
whether it would fertilize a land of freedom or of 
bondage!— how shall I struggle with the emotions 
that stifle the utterance of thy name ! ^ Our poor 
work may perish ; but thine shall endure ! This mon- 
ument may moulder away ; the solid ground it rests 
upon may sink down to a level with the sea ; but thy 
memory shall not fail ! Wheresoever among men a 
heart shall be found that beats to the transports of 
patriotism and liberty, its aspirations shall be to claim 
kindred with thy spirit. 

But the scene amidst which we stand does not per- 
mit us to confine our thoughts or our sympathies to 
those fearless spirits who hazarded or lost their lives 
on this consecrated spot. We have the happiness to 
rejoice here in the presence of a most worthy repre- 
sentation of the survivors of the whole Revolutionary 

army. 

Veterans ! you are the remnant of many a well- 
fought field. You bring with you marks of honor 
from Trenton and Monmouth, from Yorktown, Cam- 
den, Bennington, and Saratoga. Veterans of half 
A century! when in your youthful days you put 
every thing at hazard in your country's cause, good as 
that cause was, and sanguine as youth is, still your 
fondest hopes did not stretch onward to an hour like 
this ! At a period to which you could not reasonably 
have expected to arrive, at a moment of national pros- 
perity such as you could never have foreseen, you are 
now met here to enjoy the fellowship of old soldiers, 
and to receive the overflowings of a universal gratitude. 
1 See the North American Review, vol. xli. p. 242. 



330 DANIEL WEBSTER. 

But your agitated countenances and your heaving 
breasts inform me that even this is not an unmixed 
joy. I perceive that a tumult of contending feelings 
rushes upon you. The images of the dead, as well 
as the persons of the living, present themselves before 
you. The scene overwhelms you, and I turn from it. 
May the Father of all mercies smile upon your declin- 
ing years, and bless them ! And when you shall here 
have exchanged your embraces, when you shall once 
more have pressed the hands which have been so often 
extended to give succor in adversity, or grasped in 
the exultation of victory, then look abroad upon this 
lovely land which your young valor defended, and 
mark the happiness with which it is filled ; yea, look 
abroad upon the whole earth, and see what a name you 
have contributed to give to your country, and what 
a praise you have added to freedom, and then rejoice 
in the sympathy and gratitude which beam upon your 
last days from the improved condition of mankind ! 

The occasion does not require of me any particular 
account of the battle of the 17th of June, 1775, nor 
any detailed narrative of the events which immedi- 
ately preceded it. These are familiarly known to all. 
In the progress of the great and interesting contro- 
versy, Massachusetts and the town of Boston had be- 
come early and marked objects of the displeasure of 
the British Parliament. This had been manifested 
in the act for altering the government of the Pro- 
vince, and in that for shutting up the port of Boston. 
Nothing sheds more honor on our early history, and 
nothing better shows how little the feelings and sen- 
timents of the Colonies were known or regarded in 
England, than the impression which these measures 
everywhere produced in America. It had been anti- 



THE BUNKER HILL MONUMENT. 331 

cipated, that while the Colonies in general would be 
terrified by the severity of the punishment inflicted 
on Massachusetts, the other seaports would be gov- 
erned by a mere spirit of gain ; and that, as Boston 
was now cut off from all commerce, the unexpected 
advantage which this blow on her was calculated to 
confer on other towns would be greedily enjoyed. 
How miserably such reasoners deceived themselves ! 
How little they knew of the depth, and the strength, 
and the intenseness of that feeling of resistance to 
illegal acts of power, which possessed the whole Amer- 
ican people ! Everywhere the unworthy boon was 
rejected with scorn. The fortunate occasion was 
seized, everywhere, to show to the whole world that 
the Colonies were swayed by no local interest, no par- 
tial interest, no selfish interest. The temptation to 
profit by the punishment of Boston was strongest to 
our neighbors of Salem. Yet Salem was precisely 
the place where this miserable proffer was spurned, 
in a tone of the most lofty self-respect and the most 
indignant patriotism. "We are deeply affected," 
said its inhabitants, "with the sense of our public 
calamities ; but the miseries that are now rapidly has- 
tening on our brethren in the capital of the Province 
greatly excite our commiseration. By shutting up the 
port of Boston some imagine that the course of trade 
might be turned hither and to our benefit ; but we 
must be dead to every idea of justice, lost to all feel- 
ings of humanity, could we indulge a thought to seize 
on wealth and raise our fortunes on the ruin of our 
suffering neighbors." These noble sentiments were 
not confined to our immediate vicinity. In that day 
of general affection and brotherhood, the blow given 
to Boston smote on every patriotic heart from one 



332 DANIEL WEBSTER. 

end of the country to tlie other. Virginia and the 
Carolinas, as well as Connecticut and New Hampshire, 
felt and proclaimed the cause to be their own. The 
Continental Congress, then holding its first session in 
Philadelphia, expressed its sympathy for the suffering 
inhabitants of Boston, and addresses were received 
from all quarters, assuring them that the cause was a 
common one, and should be met by common efforts 
and common sacrifices. The Congress of Massachu- 
setts responded to these assurances ; and in an address 
to the Congress at Philadelphia, bearing the official 
signature, perhaps among the last, of the immortal 
Warren, notwithstanding the severity of its suffering 
and the magnitude of the dangers which threatened it, 
it was declared that this Colony " is ready, at all times, 
to spend and to be spent in the cause of America." 

But the hour drew nigh which was to put profes- 
sions to the proof, and to determine whether the au- 
thors of these mutual pledges were ready to seal them 
in blood. The tidings of Lexington and Concord had 
no sooner spread, than it was universally felt that the 
time was at last come for action. A spirit pervaded 
all ranks, not transient, not boisterous, but deep, sol- 
emn, determined, — 

" Totamque infusa per artus 
Mens agitat molem, et magno se corpore miscet." ^ 

War on their own soil and at their own doors, was, 
indeed, a strange work to the yeomanry of New Eng- 
land ; but their consciences were convinced of its ne- 
cessity, their country called them to it, and they did 
not withhold themselves from the perilous trial. The 

^ "And a Mind, diffused throughout the members, gives en- 
ergy to the whole mass, and mingles with the vast body." 



THE BUNKER HILL MONUMENT. 



333 



ordinary occupations of life were abandoned ; the 
plough was stayed in the unfinished furrow; wives 
gave up their husbands, and mothers gave up their 
sons, to the battles of a civil war. Death might come 
in honor, on the field ; it might come, in disgrace, on 
the scaffold. For either and for both they were pre- 
pared. The sentiment of Quincy was full in their 
hearts. " Blandishments," said that distinguished son 
of genius and patriotism, "will not fascinate us nor 
will threats of a halter intimidate ; for, under (rod, 
we are determined, that, wheresoever, whensoever, or 
howsoever, we shall be called to make our exit, we will 

die free men." i n i.. 

The ITth of June saw the four New England Colo- 
nies standing here, side by side, to triumph or to fal 
together ; and there was with them from that moment 
to the end of the war, what I hope will remain with 
them for ever, -one cause, one country, one heart 

The battle of Bunker Hill was attended with the 
most important effects beyond its immediate results as 
a military engagement. It created at once a state of 
open, public war. There could now be no longer a 
question of proceeding against individuals, as guilty 
of treason or rebellion. That fearful crisis was jKist. 
The appeal lay to the sword, and the only question 
was, whether the spirit and the resources of the people 
would hold out till the object should be accomplished. 
Nor were its general consequences confined to our own 
country. Tht previous proceedings of the Colonies, 
Iheir appeals, resolutions, and addresses had made 
Lir cau'se known to Europe. Without boastmg, - 
may say, that in no age or coun ry has the public 
cavfse been maintained with more force of argument 
more power of illustration, or more of that persuasion 



334 DANIEL WEBSTER. 

wMcli excited feeling and elevated principle can alone 
bestow, than the Revolutionary state paper.s exhibit. 
These papers will forever deserve to be studied, not 
only for the spirit which they breathe, but for the 
ability with which they were written. 

To this able vindication of their cause, the Colonies 
had now added a practical and severe proof of their 
own true devotion to it, and given evidence also of the 
power which they could bring to its support. All now 
saw, that if America fell, she would not fall without a 
struggle. Men felt sympathy and regard, as well as 
surprise, when they beheld these infant states, remote, 
unknown, unaided, encounter the power of England, 
and, in the first considerable battle, leave more of their 
enemies dead on the field, in proportion to the number 
of combatants, than had been recently known to fall 
in the wars of Europe. 

Information of these events, circulating throughout 
the world, at length reached the ears of one who now 
hears me.^ He has not forgotten the emotion which 
the fame of Bunker Hill, and the name of Warren, 
excited in his youthful breast. 

Sir, we are assembled to commemorate the establish- 
ment of great public principles of liberty, and to do 
honor to the distinguished dead. The occasion is too 
severe for eulogy of the living. But, Sir, your inter- 
esting relation to this country, the peculiar circum- 
stances which surround you and surround us, call on 
me to express the happiness which we derive from 
your presence and aid in this solemn commemoration. 

1 Among the earliest of the arrangements for the celebration 
of the 17th of June, 1825, was the invitation to General La- 
fayette to be present ; and he had so timed his progress through 
the other States as to return to Massachusetts in season for the 
great occasion. 



THE BUNKER HILL MONUMENT. 335 

Fortunate, fortunate man ! with what measure of 
devotion will you not thank God for the circumstances 
of your extraordinary life ! You are connected with 
both hemispheres and with two generations. Heaven 
saw fit to ordain that the electric spark of liberty 
should be conducted, through you, from the New 
World to the Old ; and we, who are now here to per- 
form this duty of patriotism, have all of us long ago 
received it in charge from our fathers to cherish your 
name and your virtues. You will account it an in- 
stance of your good fortune. Sir, that you crossed the 
seas to visit us at a time which enables you to be pres- 
ent at this solemnity. You now behold the field, the 
renown of which reached you in the heart of France, 
and caused a thrill in your ardent bosom. You see 
the lines of the little redoubt thrown up by the incred- 
ible diligence of Prescott; defended, to the last ex- 
tremity, by his lion-hearted valor ; and within which 
the corner-stone of our monument has now taken its 
position. You see where Warren fell, and where 
Parker, Gardner, McCleary, Moore, and other early 
patriots fell with him. Those who survived that day, 
and whose lives have been prolonged to the present 
hour, are now around you. Some of them you have 
known in the trying scenes of the war. Behold ! they 
now stretch forth their feeble arms to embrace you. 
Behold! they raise their trembling voices to invoke 
the blessing of God on you and yours forever. 

Sir, you have assisted us in laying the foundation 
of this structure. You have heard us rehearse, with 
our feeble commendation, the names of departed patri- 
ots. Monuments and eulogy belong to the dead. We 
give then this day to Warren and his associates. On 
other occasions they have been given to your more 



336 DANIEL WEBSTER. 

immediate companions in arms, to Washington, to 
Greene, to Gates, to Sullivan, and to Lincoln. We 
have become reluctant to grant these, our highest and 
last honors, further. We would gladly hold them yet 
back from the little remnant of that immortal band. 
" Serus in coelimi redeas.''' ^ Illustrious as are your 
merits, yet far, O, very far distant be the day, when 
any inscription shall bear your name, or any tongue 
pronounce its eulogy ! 

The leading reflection to which this occasion seems 
to invite us, respects the great changes which have 
happened in the fifty years since the battle of Bunker 
Hill was fought. And it peculiarly marks the char- 
acter of the present age, that, in looking at these 
changes, and in estimating their effect on our condi- 
tion, we are obliged to consider, not what has been 
done in our country only, but in others also. In these 
interesting times, while nations are making separate 
and individual advances in improvement, they make, 
too, a common progress; like vessels on a common 
tide, propelled by the gales at different rates, accord- 
ing to their several structure and management, but all 
moved forward by one mighty current, strong enough 
to bear onward whatever does not sink beneath it. 

A chief distinction of the present day is a commun- 
ity of opinions and knowledge amongst men in differ- 
ent nations, existing in a degree heretofore unknown. 
Knowledge has, in our time, triumphed, and is tri- 
umphing, over distance, over difference of languages, 
over diversity of habits, over prejudice, and over big- 
otry. The civilized and Christian world is fast learn- 
ing the great lesson, that difference of nation does not 
imply necessary hostility, and that all contact need not 
^ "Late may you return to heaven." 



THE BUNKER HILL MONUMENT. 337 

be war. The whole world is becoming a common field 
for intellect to act in. Energy of mind, genius, power, 
wheresoever it exists, may speak out in any tongue, 
and the world will hear it. A great chord of senti- 
ment and feeling runs through two continents, and 
vibrates over both. Every breeze wafts intelligence 
from country to country, every wave rolls it ; all give 
it forth, and all in turn receive it. There is a vast 
commerce of ideas ; there are marts and exchanges for 
intellectual discoveries, and a wonderful fellowship of 
those individual intelligences which make up the mind 
and opinion of the age. Mind is the great lever of 
all things ; human thought is the process by which 
human ends are ultimately answered ; and the diifu- 
sion of knowledge, so astonishing in the last half- 
century, has rendered innumerable minds, variously 
gifted by nature, competent to be competitors or fellow- 
workers on the theatre of intellectual operation. 

From these causes important improvements have 
taken place in the personal condition of individuals. 
Generally speaking, mankind are not only better fed 
and better clothed, but they are able also to enjoy 
more leisure ; they possess more refinement and more 
self-respect. A superior tone of education, manners, 
and habits prevails. This remark, most true in its 
application to our own country, is also partly true 
when applied elsewhere. It is proved by the vastly 
augmented consumption of those articles of manufac- 
ture and of commerce which contribute to the comforts 
and the decencies of life ; an augmentation which has 
far outrun the progress of population. And while the 
unexampled and almost incredible use of machinery 
would seem to supply the place of labor, labor still 
finds its occupation and its reward; so wisely has 



338 DANIEL WEBSTER. 

Providence adjusted men's wants and desires to their 
condition and their capacity. 

Any adequate survey, however, of the progress made 
during the last half-century in the polite and the me- 
chanic arts, in machinery and manufactures, in com- 
merce and agriculture, in letters and in science, would 
require volumes. I must abstain wholly from these 
subjects, and turn for a moment to the contemplation 
of what has been done on the great question of poli- 
tics and government. This is the master topic of the 
age ; and during the whole fifty years it has intensely 
occupied the thoughts of men. The nature of civil 
government, its ends and uses, have been canvassed 
and investigated ; ancient opinions attacked and de- 
fended ; new ideas recommended and resisted, by 
whatever power the mind of man could bring to the 
controversy. From the closet and the public halls the 
debate has been transferred to the field ; and the world 
has been shaken by wars of unexampled magnitude, 
and the greatest variety of fortune. A day of peace 
has at length succeeded ; and now that the strife has 
subsided, and the smoke cleared away, we may be- 
gin to see what has actually been done, permanently 
changing the state and condition of human society. 
And, without dwelling on particular circumstances, it 
is most apparent, that, from the before-mentioned 
causes of augmented knowledge and improved indi- 
vidual condition, a real, substantial, and important 
change has taken place, and is taking place, highly 
favorable, on the whole, to human liberty and human 
happiness. 

The great wheel of political revolution began to 
move in America. Here its rotation was guarded, 
regular, and safe. Transferred to the other continent, 



THE BUNKER HILL MONUMENT. 339 

from unfortunate but natural causes, it received an 
irregular and violent impulse ; it whirled along with 
a fearful celerity; till at length, like the chariot- 
wheels in the races of antiquity, it took fire from the 
rapidity of its own motion, and blazed onward, spread- 
ing conflagration and terror around. 

We learn from the result of this experiment, how 
fortunate was our own condition, and how admirably 
the character of our people was calculated for setting 
the great example of popular governments. The pos- 
session of power did not turn the heads of the Amer- 
can people, for they had long been in the habit of ex- 
ercising a great degree of self-control. Although the 
paramount authority of the parent state existed over 
them, yet a large field of legislation had always been 
open to our Colonial assemblies. They were accus- 
tomed to representative bodies and the forms of free 
government ; they understood the doctrine of the divi- 
sion of power among different branches, and the neces- 
sity of checks on each. The character of our country- 
men, moreover, was sober, moral, and religious ; and 
there was little in the change to shock their feelings 
of justice and humanity, or even to disturb an honest 
prejudice. We had no domestic throne to overturn, 
no privileged orders to cast down, no violent changes 
of property to encounter. In the American Revolu- 
tion, no man sought or wished for more than to de- 
fend and enjoy his own. None hoped for plunder or 
for spoil. Rapacity was unknown to it ; the axe was 
not among the instruments of its accomplishment ; and 
we all know that it could not have lived a single day 
under any well-founded imputation of possessing a 
tendency adverse to the Christian religion. 

It need not surprise us, that, under circumstances 



340 DANIEL WEBSTER. 

less auspicious, political revolutions elsewhere, even 
when well intended, have terminated differently. It 
is, indeed, a great achievement, it is the masterwork 
of the world, to establish governments entirely popu- 
lar on lasting foundations ; nor is it easy, indeed, to 
introduce the popular principle at all into govern- 
ments to which it has been altogether a stranger. It 
cannot be doubted, however, that Europe has come 
out of the contest, in which she has been so long en- 
gaged, with greatly superior knowledge, and, in many 
respects, in a highly improved condition. Whatever 
benefit has been acquired is likely to be retained, for 
it consists mainly in the acquisition of more enlight- 
ened ideas. And although kingdoms and provinces 
may be wrested from the hands that hold them, in the 
same manner they were obtained ; although ordinary 
and vulgar power may, in human affairs, be lost as it 
has been won ; yet it is the glorious prerogative of the 
empire of knowledge, that what it gains it never loses. 
On the contrary, it increases by the multiple of its 
own power ; all its ends become means ; all its attain- 
ments, helps to new conquests. Its whole abundant 
harvest is but so much seed wheat, and nothing has 
limited, and nothing can limit, the amount of ultimate 
product. 

Under the influence of this rapidly increasing know- 
ledge, the people have begun, in all forms of govern- 
ment, to think, and to reason, on affairs of state. Re- 
garding government as an institution for the public 
good, they demand a knowledge of its operations, and 
a participation in its exercise. A call for the repre- 
sentative system, wherever it is not enjoyed, and where 
there is already intelligence enough to estimate its 
value, is perseveringly made. Where men may speak 



THE BUNKER HILL MONUMENT. 341 

out, they demand it; where the bayonet is at their 
throats, they pray for it. 

When Louis the Fourteenth said, " I am the State," 
he expressed the essence of the doctrine of unlimited 
power. By the rules of that system, the people are 
disconnected from the state ; they are its subjects, it 
is their lord. These ideas, founded in the love of 
power, and long supported by the excess and the abuse 
of it, are yielding, in our age, to other opinions ; and 
the civilized world seems at last to be proceeding to 
the conviction of that fundamental and manifest truth, 
that the powers of government are but a trust, and 
that they cannot be lawfully exercised but for the 
good of the community. As knowledge is more and 
more extended, this conviction becomes more and 
more general. Knowledge, in truth, is the great sun 
in the firmament. Life and power are scattered with 
all its beams. The prayer of the Grecian champion, 
when enveloped in unnatural clouds and darkness, is 
the appropriate political su])plication for the people of 
every country not yet blessed with free institutions : — 
" Dispel this cloud, the light of heaven restore, 
Give me to see, — and Ajax asks no more." 

We may hope that the growing influence of en- 
lightened sentiment will promote the permanent peace 
of the world. Wars to maintain family alliances, to 
uphold or to cast down dynasties, and to regulate suc- 
cessions to thrones, which have occupied so much 
room in the history of modern times, if not less likely 
to happen at all, will be less likely to become general 
and involve many nations, as the great principle shall 
be more and more established, that the interest of the 
world is peace, and its first great statute, that every 
nation possesses the power of establishing a govern- 



342 DANIEL WEBSTER. 

ment for itself. But public opinion has attained also 
an influence over governments which do not admit the 
popular principle into their organization. A neces- 
sary respect for the judgment of the world operates, 
in some measure, as a control over the most unlimited 
forms of authority. It is owing, perhaps, to this 
truth, that the interesting struggle of the Greeks has 
been suffered to go on so long, without a direct inter- 
ference, either to wrest that country from its present 
masters, or to execute the system of pacification by 
force ; and, with united strength, lay the neck of 
Christian and civilized Greek at the foot of the bar- 
barian Turk. Let us thank God that we live in an 
age when something has influence besides the bayonet, 
and when the sternest authority does not venture to 
encounter the scorching power of public reproach. 
Any attempt of the kind I have mentioned should be 
met by one universal burst of indignation ; the air of 
the civilized world ought to be made too warm to be 
comfortably breathed by any one who would hazard it. 
It is, indeed, a touching reflection, that, while, in 
the fulness of our country's happiness, we rear this 
monument to her honor, we look for instruction in our 
undertaking to a country which is now in fearful con- 
test, not for works of art or memorials of glory, but 
for her own existence. Let her be assured, that she 
is not forgotten in the world ; that her efforts are ap- 
plauded, and that constant prayers ascend for her 
success. And let us cherish a confident hope for her 
final triumph. If the true spark of religious and civil 
liberty be kindled, it will burn. Human agency can- 
not extinguish it. Like the earth's central fire, it 
may be smothered for a time ; the ocean may over- 
whelm it : mountains may press it down ; but its in- 



THE BUNKER HILL MONUMENT. 343 

herent and unconquerable force will heave both the 
ocean and the land, and at some time or other, m some 
place or other, the volcano will break out and flame 
up to heaven. 

Among the great events of the half-century, we 
must reckon, certainly, the revolution of South Amer-. 
ica ; and we are not likely to overrate the importance 
of that revolution, either to the people of the country 
itself or to the rest of the world. The late Spanish 
colonies, now independent states, under circumstances 
less favorable, doubtless, than attended our own revo- 
lution, have yet successfully commenced their national 
existence. They have accomplished the great object 
of establishing their independence ; they are known 
and acknowledged in the world ; and although in re- 
gard to their systems of government, their sentiments 
on religious toleration, and their provision for public 
instruction, they may have yet much to learn, it must 
be admitted that they have risen to the condition of 
settled and established states more rapidly than could 
have been reasonably anticipated. They already fur- 
nish an exhilarating example of the difference between 
free governments and despotic misrule. Their com- 
merce, at this moment, creates a new activity in all 
the great marts of the world. They show themselves 
able, by an exchange of commodities, to bear a useful 
part in the intercourse of nations. 

A new spirit of enterprise and industry begins to 
prevail; all the great interests of society receive a 
salutary impulse ; and the progress of information not 
only testifies to an improved condition, but itself con- 
stitutes the highest and most essential improvement. 

When the battle of Bunker Hill was fought, the 
existence of South America was scarcely felt in the 



844 DANIEL WEBSTER. 

civilized world. The thirteen little colonies of North 
America habitually called themselves the "continent." 
Borne down by colonial subjugation, monopoly, and 
bigotry, these vast regions of the South were hardly 
visible above the horizon. But in our day there has 
been, as it were, a new creation. The southern hemi- 
sphere emerges from the sea. Its lofty mountains be- 
gin to lift themselves into the light of heaven ; its 
broad and fertile plains stretch out, in beauty, to the 
eye of civilized man, and at the mighty bidding of the 
voice of jDolitical liberty the waters of darkness retire. 

And now, let us indulge an honest exultation in the 
conviction of the benefit which the example of our 
country has produced, and is likely to produce, on hu- 
man freedom and human happiness. Let us endeavor 
to comprehend in all its magnitude, and to feel in all 
its importance, the part assigned to us in the great 
drama of human affairs. We are j)laced at the head 
of the system of representative and popular govern- 
ments. Thus far our example shows that such govern- 
ments are compatible, not only with respectability and 
power, but with repose, with peace, with security of 
personal rights, with good laws, and a just adminis- 
tration. 

We are not propagandists. Wherever other sys- 
tems are preferred, either as being thought better in 
themselves, or as better suited to existing conditions, 
we leave the preference to be enjoyed. Our history 
hitherto proves, however, that the popular form is 
practicable, and that with wisdom and knowledge men 
may govern themselves ; and the duty incumbent on 
us is to preserve the consistency of this cheering ex- 
ample, and take care that nothing may weaken its 
authority with the world. If, in our case, the repre- 



THE BUNKER HILL MONUMENT. 845 

sentative system ultimately fail, popular governments 
must be pronounced impossible. No combination of 
circumstances more favorable to the experiment can 
ever be expected to occur. The last hopes of man- 
kind, therefore, rest with us ; and if it should be pro- 
claimed, that our example had become an argument 
against the experiment, the knell of popular liberty 
would be sounded throughout the earth. 

These are excitements to duty ; but they are not 
suggestions of doubt. Our history and our condition, 
all that is gone before us, and all that surrounds us, 
authorize the belief, that popular governments, though 
subject to occasional variations, in form perhaps not 
always for the better, may yet, in their general char- 
acter, be as durable and permanent as other systems. 
We know, indeed, that in our country any other is 
impossible. The 2)rinci2)Ie of free governments adheres 
to the American soil. It is bedded in it, immovable 
as its mountains. 

And let the sacred obligations which have devolved 
on this generatioi^ and on us, sink deep into our 
hearts. Those who established our liberty and our 
government are daily dropping from among us. The 
great trust now descends to new hands. Let us apply 
ourselves to that which is presented to us, as our ap- 
propriate object. We can win no laurels in a war 
for independence. Earlier and worthier hands have 
gathered them all. Nor are there places for us by the 
side of Solon, and Alfred, and other founders of states. 
Our fathers have filled them. But there remains to 
us a great duty of defence and preservation ; and there 
is opened to us, also, a noble pursuit, to which the 
spirit of the times strongly invites us. Our proper 
business is improvement. Let our age be the age of 



346 DANIEL WEBSTER. 

improvement. In a day of peace, let us advance the 
arts of peace and the works of peace. Let us develop 
the resources of our land, call forth its powers, build 
up its institutions, promote all its great interests, and 
see whether we also, in our day and generation, may 
not perform something worthy to be remembered. 
Let us cultivate a true spirit of union and harmony. 
In pursuing the great objects which our condition 
points out to us, let us act under a settled conviction, 
and an habitual feeling, that these twenty-four States 
are one country. Let our conceptions be enlarged to 
the circle of our duties. Let us extend our ideas over 
the whole of the vast field in which we are called to 
act. Let our object be, our country, our whole 

COUNTRY, AND NOTHING BUT OUR COUNTRY. And, 

by the blessing of God, may that country itself be- 
come a vast and splendid monument, not of oppression 
and terror, but of Wisdom, of Peace, and of Liberty, 
upon which the world may gaze with admiration for- 
ever ! 



EDWARD EVERETT. 



BIOGRAPHICAL SKETCH. 

Edwakd Everett was born at Dorchester, Mass., April 
11, 1794. At the age of eight he was, for a short time, a 
pupil of Daniel Webster, who was twelve years his senior. 
The acquaintance then begun between these embryo orators 
ripened into a lasting friendship. 

His son, Dr. William Everett, says in a speech made at 
the Harvard Commencement Dinner of 1891 : " My father's 
connection with Harvard College began eighty-seven years 
ago, when he was a child of ten. His older brother was in 
college, living in the south entry of HoUis. The child 
was to begin the study of Greek in the winter vacation. 
The family were too poor to afford two Greek grammars ; 
and little Edward had to walk in the depth of winter from 
the corner of Essex and Washington streets in Boston over 
the then most lonely road to the college and secure the 
prized volume. From that day his connection with Har- 
vard College was scarcely broken till his death. He was 
four years an undergraduate, . . . two years a tutor, nine 
years a professor, three years president, and at two differ- 
ent times an overseer ; at his death he held an appointment 
as college lecturer." 

The older brother referred to above was Alexander Hill 
Everett, who was graduated with the highest honors at the 
age of fourteen. Five years later (in 1811) Edward was 
graduated with the highest honors at the age of seventeen ; 
he was regarded in college as a prodigy of youthful genius. 



348 EDWARD EVERETT. 

In 1812 he became a tutor at Harvard, and at the same 
time a student of theology. On February 9, 1814, at the 
youthful age of nineteen, he was ordained as pastor of the 
Brattle Street Church, at Boston, where he immediately 
rose to distinction as an eloquent and impressive pulpit 
orator. 

In March, 1815, he accepted the Eliot Professorship of 
Greek at Harvard College. In order to become better pre- 
pared for the duties of the position he travelled and studied 
in Europe until 1819. While abroad he pursued an exten- 
sive range of study at the principal centres of learning, and 
he took the degree of Ph. D. at the University of Gottingen. 
His return to Cambridge was hailed with delight, and gave 
a wonderful impulse to American scholarship. In addition 
to his duties as professor he took charge of the North 
American Revieiv, which he conducted for five years. 

In 1824 he delivered his celebrated Phi Beta Kappa ora- 
tion at Cambridge, Mass., to an immense audience, including 
General Lafayette, in which he portrayed in eloquent and 
patriotic terms the political, social, and literary future of 
our country. In the same year he was elected a member 
of the National House of Representatives ; after four re- 
elections and a valuable service of ten years as Congressman 
he was chosen Governor of Massachusetts. He was annu- 
ally reelected Governor until 1839, when he was defeated 
by a majority of one vote. 

In 1841, after nearly a year's sojourn in Europe, he was 
appointed Minister Plenipotentiary to Great Britain, under 
General Harrison as President and his friend Daniel Web- 
ster as Secretary of State. In 1845 he returned to America 
and became for three years President of Harvard College. 
In 1850 he published his speeches and orations in two vol- 
umes, and at about the same time edited Daniel Webster's 
works in six volumes, for which he prepared an elaborate 
memoir. Upon the death of Webster in 1852, Everett took 
his place as Secretary of State under President Fillmore. 



BIOGRAPHICAL SKETCH. 349 

From March, 1853, to May, 1854, he was in the United 
States Senate. 

On February 22, 1856, he delivered in Boston an address, 
on the Character of Washington, which he repeated in dif- 
ferent cities and towns nearly one hundred and fifty times. 
He gave the entire proceeds of this address toward the pur- 
chase of Mt. Vernon, the home of Washington, for the gen- 
eral government. He also gave for the same purpose 
$10,000 received for articles written for the New York 
Ledger, thus raising the entire amount contributed by him 
to over $100,000. In 1857 and 1858 he gave to different 
charitable associations the proceeds of other addresses, 
amounting to nearly $20,000. 

In 1860 he was nominated for the Vice-Presidency on the 
ticket- with John Bell, of Tennessee, but was defeated. 
Though anxious for peace while there was a chance to avoid 
war, he threw the whole weight of his powers into a support 
of the Union after the War of Secession began, and won 
the gratitude of his countrymen by the fervent, patriotic 
eloquence of his speeches in all the principal cities of the 
North. His death occurred on January 15, 1865, and re- 
sulted from a cold caught on the evening of January 9, 
while delivering an address in aid of the suffering inhabi- 
tants of Savannah, which had just been captured by Gen. 
Sherman. 

Edward Everett's life of seventy-one years spanned a large 
portion of the youth of our nation. Born in the administra- 
tion of Washington, he lived to see the War of Secession 
practically ended under Lincoln. Although thirty-six years 
old before the first locomotive engine made its appearance 
in the United States, he lived to see our country covered 
with a network of over thirty-five thousand miles of rail- 
ways. During his life the population of the United States 
increased from about four to thirty millions, and the number 
of States from fifteen to thirty-six. 

It is not to be wondered at that he was fired with an in- 



350 EDWARD EVERETT. 

tense feeling of patriotism, or that his noble utterances struck 
responsive chords in the hearts of his listeners. He had a 
theory that man can do fairly well anything that he honestly 
tries to do ; his own practice was to undertake whatever 
work lay before him, and so extraordinary was the versatility 
of his great mental power that he did remarkably well what- 
ever he undertook. He achieved distinction as an orator, 
a man of letters, a statesman, and a diplomatist, but the 
single title which describes him best is that of orator. Had 
he labored continuously in some chosen field he would have 
left behind him even a greater monument of his remarkable 
power than is to be found in his numerous speeches and 
orations. 



FROM "THE CHARACTER OF WASHINGTON." 

Common sense was eminently a characteristic of 
Washington ; so called, not because it is so very com- 
mon a trait of character of public men, but because it 
is the final judgment on great practical questions to 
which the mind of the community is pretty sure even- 
tually to arrive. Few qualities of character in those 
who influence the fortunes of nations are so conducive 
both to stability and progress. But it is a quality 
which takes no hold of the imagination ; it inspires no 
enthusiasm, it wins no favor ; it is well if it can stand 
its ground against the plausible absurdities, the hol- 
low pretences, the stupendous impostures of the day. 

But, however these unobtrusive and austere virtues 
may be overlooked in the popular estimate, they be- 
long unquestionably to the true type of sterling great- 
ness, reflecting as far as it can be done within the 
narrow limits of humanity that deep repose and silent 
equilibrium of mental and moral power which governs 
the universe. To complain of the character of Wash- 
ington that it is destitute of brilliant qualities, is to 
complain of a circle that it has no salient points and 
no sharp angles in its circumference ; forgetting that 
it owes all its wonderful properties to the unbroken 
curve of which every point is equidistant from the 
centre.^ Instead, therefore, of being a mark of infe- 

^ I was not aware, when I wrote this sentence, that I had ever 
read Dryden's "Heroic Stanzas consecrated to the Memory of 
his Highness Oliver, late Lord Protector of this Commonwealth, 



352 EDWARD EVERETT. 

riority, this sublime adjustment of powers and virtues 
in the character of Washington is in reality its glory. 
It is this which chiefly puts him in harmony with 
more than human greatness. The higher we rise in 
the scale of being, — material, intellectual, and moral, 
— the more certainly we quit the region of the bril- 
liant eccentricities and dazzling contrasts which belong- 
to a vulgar greatness. Order and proportion charac- 
terize the primordial constitution of the terrestrial sys- 
tem ; ineffable harmony rules the heavens. All the 
great eternal forces act in solemn silence. The brawl- 
ing torrent that dries up in summer deafens you with 
its roaring whirlpools in March ; while the vast earth 
on which we dwell, with all its oceans and all its con- 
tinents and its thousand millions of inhabitants, re- 
volves unheard upon its soft axle at the rate of a thou- 
sand miles an hour, and rushes noiselessly on its orbit a 
million and a half miles a day. Two storm-clouds en- 
camped upon opposite hills on a sultry summer's even- 
ings at the expense of no more electricity, according 
to Mr. Faraday, than is evolved in the decomposition 
of a single drop of water, will shake the surrounding 
atmosphere with their thunders, which, loudly as they 
rattle on the spot, will yet not be heard at the distance 
of twenty miles ; while those tremendous and unutter- 
able forces which ever issue from the throne of God, 
and drag the chariot-wheels of Uranus and Neptune 
along the uttermost pathwaj^s of the solar system, per- 
vade the illimitable universe in silence. 

written after celebrating his funeral," one of which is as fol- 
lows : — 

" How shall I then begin or where conclude, 
To draw a fame so truly circular, 
For in a round what order can be shewed, 
When all the parts so equal perfect are ? " 



THE CHARACTER OF WASHINGTON. 353 

This calm and well-balanced temperament of Wash- 
ington's character is not badly shadowed forth in the 
poet's description of Cicero : — 

" This magistrate hath struck an awe into me, 
And by his sweetness won a more regard 
Unto his place, than all the boisterous moods 
That ignorant greatness practiseth to fill 
The large unfit authority it wears. 
How easy is a noble spirit discerned 
From harsh and sulphurous matter, that flies out 
In contumelies, makes a noise, and bursts." ^ 

And did I say, my friends, that I was nnable to fur- 
nish an entirely satisfactory answer to the question, in 
what the true excellence of the character of Washing- 
ton consists? Let me recall the word as unjust to 
myself and unjust to you. The answer is plain and 
siinple enough ; it is this, that all the great qualities 
of disposition and action, which so eminently fitted 
him for the service of his fellow-men, were founded on 
the basis of a pure Christian morality, and derived 
their strength and energy from that vital source. He 
was great as he was good ; he was great because he 
was good ; and I believe, as I do in my existence, that 
it was an important part in the design of Providence 
in raising him up to be the leader of the Kevolution- 
ary struggle, and afterwards the first President of the 
United States, to rebuke prosperous ambition and suc- 
cessful intrigue ; to set before the people of America, 
in the morning of their national existence, a living ex- 
ample to prove that armies may be best conducted, 
and governments most ably and honorably adminis- 
tered, by men of sound moral principle ; to teach to 
gifted and aspiring individuals, and the parties they 
lead, that, though a hundred crooked paths may con- 
1 Ben Jonson's Catiline. 



354 EDWARD EVERETT. 

duct to a temporary success, tlie one plain and straight 
path of public and private virtue can alone lead to a 
pure and lasting fame and the blessings of posterity. 

Born beneath an humble but virtuous roof, brought 
up at the knees of a mother not unworthy to be named 
with the noblest matrons of Rome or Israel, the " good 
boy," as she delighted to call him, passed uncorrupted 
through the temptations of the solitary frontier, the 
camp, and the gay world, and grew up into the good 
man. Engaging in early youth in the service of the 
country, rising rapidly to the highest trusts, office and 
influence and praise passing almost the bounds of hu- 
man desert did nothing to break down the austere sim- 
plicity of his manners or to shake the solid basis of his 
virtues. Placed at the head of the suffering and dis- 
contented armies of his country, urged by the tempter 
to change his honest and involuntary dictatorship of 
influence into a usurped dictatorship of power, reluc- 
tantly consenting to one reelection to the Presidency 
and positively rejecting a second, no suspicion ever 
crossed the mind of an honest man, — let the libellers 
say what they would, for libellers I am sorry to say 
there were in that day as in this, — men who pick 
their daily dishonorable bread out of the characters of 
men as virtuous as themselves, — and they spared not 
Washington, — but the suspicion never entered into 
the mind of an honest man, that his heart was open to 
the seductions of ambition or interest ; or that he was 
capable in the slightest degree, by word or deed, of 
shaping his policy with a view to court popular favor 
or serve a selfish end ; that a wish or purpose ever 
entered his mind inconsistent with the spotless purity 
of his character. 



THE CHARACTER OF WASHINGTON. 355 

" No veil 
He needed, virtue proof, no thought infirm 
Altered his cheek." 

And is the judgment of mankind so depraved, is their 
perception of moral worth so dull, that the}^ can with- 
hold their admiration from such a character and be- 
stow it, for instance, upon the hard-hearted, wondrous 
youth of ancient renown, who when he had trampled 
the effeminate rabble of the East under the iron feet 
of his Macedonian Phalanx, and that world which he 
wept to conquer was in fact grovelling at his footstool ; 
when he might have founded a dynasty at Babylon 
which would have crushed the Roman domination in 
the bud, and changed the history of the world from 
that time to this, could fool away the sceptre of uni- 
versal dominion which Providence was forcing into 
his hand in one night's debauch, and quench power 
and glory and reason and life in the poisonous cup of 
wine and harlotry ? 

Can men coldly qualify their applause of the patriot 
hero of the American Revolution, who never drew his 
sword but in a righteous defensive war, and magnify 
the name of the great Roman Dictator who made the 
'' bravo's trade " the merciless profession of his life, 
and trained his legions in the havoc of unoffending 
foreign countries for the " more than civil wars " in 
which he prostrated the liberties of his own ? 

Can they seriously disparage our incorruptible 
Washington, who would not burden the impoverished 
treasury of the Union by accepting even the frugal 
pay of his rank ; whose entire expenditure charged to 
the public for the whole war was less than the cost of 
the stationery of Congress for a single year ; whom all 
the gold of California and Australia could not have 



356 EDWARD EVERETT. 

bribed to a mean act, — can they seriously disparage 
him in comparison with such a man as the hero of 
Blenheim, the renowned English commander, the ablest 
general, the most politic statesman, the most adroit 
negotiator of the day, — of whom it has been truly 
said that he never formed the plan of a campaign 
which he failed to execute, never besieged a city which 
he did not take, never fought a battle which he did 
not gain, and who, alas ! caused the muster-rolls of his 
victorious army to be fraudently made out, and pock- 
eted the pay which he drew in the names of men who 
had fallen in his own sight four years before. 

There is a splendid monumental pile in England, 
the most magnificent perhaps of her hundred palaces, 
founded in the time of Queen Anne at the public cost, 
to perpetuate the fame of Marlborough. The grand 
building, with its vast wings and spacious courts, cov- 
ers seven acres and a half of land. It is approached 
on its various sides by twelve gates or bridges, some 
of them triumphal gates, in a circumference of thirteen 
miles, enclosing the noble park of twenty-seven hun- 
dred acres (Boston Common has forty-three), in which 
the castle stands, surrounded by the choicest beauties 
of forest and garden and fountain and lawn and 
stream. All that gold could buy, or the bounty of 
his own or foreign princes could bestow, or taste de- 
vise, or art execute, or ostentation could lavish, to per- 
fect and adorn the all but regal structure, without 
and within, is there. Its saloons and its galleries, its 
library and its museum, among the most spacious in 
England for a private mansion, are filled with the 
rarities and wonders of ancient and modern art. Elo- 
quent inscriptions from the most gifted pens of the 
age — the English by Lord Bolingbroke, the Latin, I 



THE CHARACTER OF WASHINGTON. 357 

believe, by Bishop Hoadley — set forth on triumphal 
arches and columns the exploits of him to whom the 
whole edifice and the domains which surround it are 
one gorgeous monument. Lest human adulation 
should prove unequal to the task, Nature herself has 
been called in to record his achievements. They have 
been planted, rooted in the soil. Groves and coppices, 
curiously disposed, represent the position, the num- 
bers, the martial array of the hostile squadrons at 
Blenheim. Thus, with each returning year. Spring 
hangs out his triumphant banners. May's ^olian 
lyre sings of his victories through her gorgeous foli- 
age ; and the shrill trump of November sounds " Mal- 
brook " through her leafless branches. 

Twice in my life I have visited the magnificent res- 
idence, — not as a guest ; once when its stately porticos 
afforded a grateful shelter from the noonday sun, and 
again, after thirty years' interval, when the light of 
a full harvest moon slept sweetly on the bank once 
shaded by fair Rosamond's bower, — so says tradition, 
— and poured its streaming bars of silver through the 
branches of oaks which were growing before Columbus 
discovered America. But to me, at noontide or in 
the evening, the gorgeous pile was as dreary as death, 
its luxurious grounds as melancholy as a churchyard. 
It seemed to me, not a splendid palace, but a dismal 
mausoleum, in which a great and blighted name lies 
embalmed like some old Egyptian tyrant, black and 
ghastly in the asphaltic contempt of ages, serving but 
to rescue from an enviable oblivion the career and 
character of the magnificent peculator and miser and 
traitor to whom it is dedicated ; needy in the midst of 
his ill-gotten millions ; mean at the head of his victo- 
rious armies : despicable under the shadow of his 



358 EDWARD EVERETT. 

tliick-woven laurels ; and poor and miserable and blind 
and naked amidst the lying shams of his tinsel great- 
ness. The eloquent inscriptions in Latin and English 
as I strove to read them seemed to fade from arch 
and column, and three dreadful words of palimpsestic 
infamy came out in their stead, like those which 
caused the knees of the Chaldean tyrant to smite to- 
gether, as he beheld them traced by no mortal fingers 
on the vaulted canopy which sj^read like a sky over 
his accursed revels ; and those dreadful words were, — 

Avarice, Plunder, Eternal Shame ! 

There is a modest private mansion on the bank of 
the Potomac, the abode of George Washington and 
Martha his beloved, his loving, faithful wife. It 
boasts no spacious portal nor gorgeous colonnade, 
nor massy elevation, nor storied tower. The porter's 
lodge at Blenheim Castle, nay, the marble dog-ken- 
nels, were not built for the entire cost of Mount Ver- 
non. No arch nor column, in courtly English or 
courtlier Latin, sets forth the deeds and the worth of 
the Father of his Country ; he needs them not ; the 
unwritten benedictions of millions cover all the walls. 
No gilded dome swells from the lowly roof to catch 
the morning or evening beam ; but the love and grati- 
tude of united America settle upon it in one eternal 
sunshine. From beneath that humble roof went forth 
the intrepid and unselfish warrior, — the magistrate 
who knew no glory but his country's good ; to that he 
returned happiest when his work was done. There 
he lived in noble simplicity ; there he died in glory 
and peace. While it stands the latest generations of 
the grateful children of America will make their pil- 
grimage to it as to a shrine ; and when it shall fall, if 



THE CHARACTER OF WASHINGTON. 359 

fall it must, the memory and the name of Washington 
shall shed an eternal glory on the spot. 

Yes, my friends, it is the pure morality of Wash- 
ington's character in which its pecular excellence re- 
sides ; and it is this which establishes its intimate rela- 
tions with general humanity. On this basis he ceases 
to be the hero of America, and becomes the hero of 
mankind. I have seen it lately maintained by a re- 
spectable foreign writer, that he could not have led 
the mighty host which Napoleon marched into Russia 
in 1812 ; not so much one army as thirteen armies, 
each led by its veteran chief, some of them by tribu- 
tary kings, and all conducted to their destination 
across continental Europe without confusion and 
without mutual interference, by the master mind, the 
greatest military array the world has ever seen. That 
Washington, who never proved unequal to any task, 
however novel or arduous, could not have led that 
gigantic army into Russia I am slow to believe. I 
see not why he who did great things with small means 
is to be supposed to be incompetent to do great things 
with large means. That he would not, if it depended 
on him, have plunged France and Europe into that 
dreadful war, I readily grant. But allowing what 
cannot be shown, that he was not as a strategist equal 
to the task in question, I do not know that his mili- 
tary reputation is more impeached by this gratuitous 
assumption, that he could not have got that mighty 
host into Russia, than Napoleon's by the historical 
fact that he could not and did not get it out of 
Russia. 

At any rate, whatever idle comparisons between 
Napoleon and Washington, unfavorable to the mili- 
tary genius of the latter, may be instituted, Washing- 



360 EDWARD EVERETT. 

ton himself, modest as he was, deriving conscious 
strength from the pure patriotism which formed the 
great motive of his conduct, did not fear to place him- 
self in a position which he must have thought would, 
in all human probability, bring him into collision 
with the youthful conqueror of Italy, fresh from the 
triumphs of his first, and, all things considered, his 
most brilliant campaigns. The United States, I need 
not remind you, were on the verge of a war with 
France in 1798. The command of the armies of the 
Union was pressed by President Adams on Washing- 
ton, and he consented to take command in the event 
of an invasion. In a very remarkable letter written 
in July, 1798, he mentions the pi'actice " adopted by 
the French (with whom we are now to contend), and 
with great and astonishing success, to appoint generals 
of juvenile years to command their armies." ^ He had 
every reason at that time to suppose, and no doubt did 
suppose, that in the event of a French invasion, the 
armies of France would have been commanded by the 
youngest and most successful of those youthful gen- 
erals. 

A recent judicious French writer (M. Edouard La- 
boulaye), though greatly admiring the character of 
Washington, denies him the brilliant military genius 
of Julius Caesar. For my own part, considering the 
disparity of the means at their command respectively 
and of their scale of operations, I believe that after 
times will, on the score of military capacity, assign as 
high a place to the patriot chieftain who founded the 
Republic of America, as to the ambitious usurper who 
overturned the liberties of Rome. Washington would 
not most certainly have carried an unprovoked and 
1 Wasliingtonh Works, vol. xi. p. 249. 



THE CHARACTER OF WASHINGTON. 361 

desolating war into the provinces of Gallia, chopping 
off the right hands of whole populations gnilty of no 
crime but that of defending their homes ; he would 
not have thrown his legions into Britain as Caesar 
did, though the barbarous natives had never heard of 
his name. Though, to meet the invaders of his coun- 
try, he could push his way across the broad Delaware, 
through drifting masses of ice in a December night, 
he could not, I grant, in defiance of the laws of his 
country, have spurred his horse across the " little Eu- 
bicon " beneath the mild skies of an Ausonian winter.^ 
It was not talent which he wanted for brilliant mili- 
tary achievement ; he wanted a willingness to shed 
the blood of fellow-men for selfish ends ; he wanted 
unchastened ambition ; he wanted an ear deaf as the 
adder's to the cry of suffering humanity ; he wanted 
a remorseless thirst for false glory ; he wanted an iron 
heart. 

But it is time, my friends, to draw these contem- 
plations to a close. When the decease of this illus- 
trious and beloved commander-in-chief, in 1799, was 
officially announced to the army of the United States 
by General Hamilton, who of all his honored and 
trusted associates stood highest, I think, in his affec- 
tions and confidence, it was truly said by him in his 
general orders, that "the voice of praise would in 
vain endeavor to exalt a name unrivalled in the lists 
of true glory." It is for us, citizens of the country 
which he lived but to serve, children of parents who 
saw him face to face, enjoying ourselves the inestima- 
ble blessings which he did so much to secure and per- 
petuate, to reflect lustre upon his memory in the only 
way in which it is possible for us to do so, by showing 
"'■ Ut ventum est parvi Rubicontis ad undam. — Lucan, i. 185. 



362 EDWARD EVEB.ETT. 

that his example and his counsels, instead of losing 
their influence by the lapse of years, are possessed of 
an ever-during vitality. Born into the family of na- 
tions in these latter days, inheriting from ancient 
times and from foreign countries the bright and in- 
structive example of all their honored sons, it has been 
the privilege of America, in the first generation of her 
national existence, to give back to the world many 
names whose lustre will never fade, one of which the 
whole family of Christendom- is willing to acknow- 
ledge the preeminence ; a name of which neither 
Greece nor Eome, nor republican Italy, Switzerland 
nor Holland, nor constitutional England can boast the 
rival. " A character of virtues so happily tempered 
by one another " (I use the words of Charles James 
Fox), " and so wholly unalloyed with any vices as 
that of Washington, is hardly to be found on the 
pages of history." 



HENRY WADSWORTH LONGFELLOW. 



BIOGRAPHICAL SKETCH. 

Henry Wadsworth Longfellow was born in Portland, 
Maine, February 27, 1807. He was a classmate of Haw- 
thorne at Bowdoin College, graduating there in the class of 
1825. He began the study of law in the office of his father, 
Hon. Stephen Longfellow ; but receiving shortly the ap- 
pointment of professor of modern languages at Bowdoin, 
he devoted himself after that to literature, and to teaching 
in connection with literature. Before beginning his work 
at Bowdoin he increased his qualifications by travel and 
study in Europe, where he stayed three years. Upon his 
return he gave his lectures on modern languages and litera- 
ture at the college, and wrote occasionally for the North 
American Revieiu and other periodicals. The first volume 
which he published was an Essay on the Moral and Devo- 
tional Poetry of Sj^am, accompanied by translations from 
Spanish verse. This was issued in 1833, but has not been 
kept in print as a separate work. It appears as a chapter 
in Outre-Mer, a reflection of his European life and travel, 
the first of his prose writings. In 1835 he was invited to 
succeed Mr. George Ticknor as professor of modern lan- 
guages and literature at Harvard College, and again went 
to Europe for preparatory study, giving especial attention 
to Switzerland and the Scandinavian countries. He held 
his professorship until 1854, but continued to live in Cam- 
bridge until his death, March 24, 1882, occupying a house 
known from a former occupant as the Craigie house, and 



364 HENRY WADSWORTH LONGFELLOW. 

also as Washington's headquarters, that general having so 
used it while organizing the army that held Boston in siege 
at the beginning of the Revolution. Everett, Sparks, and 
Worcester, the lexicographer, at one time or another lived 
in this house, and here Longfellow wrote most of his works. 
In 1839 appeared Hyperion, a Romance, which, with 
more narrative form than Outi^e-Mer, like that gave the 
results of a poet's entrance into the riches of the Old World 
life. In the same year was published Voices of the Night, 
a little volume containing chiefly poems and translations 
which had been printed separately in periodicals. The 
Psahn of Life, perhaps the best known of Longfellow's 
short poems, was in this volume, and here too were The 
Beleaguered City and Footsteps of Angels. Ballads and 
other Poems and Poems on Slavery appeared in 1842; 
The Spanish Student, a play in three acts, in 1843 ; The 
Belfry of Bruges and other Poems in 1846; Evangeline 
in 1847 ; Kavanagh, a Tale, in prose, in 1849. Besides 
the various volumes comprising short poems, the list of Mr. 
Longfellow's works includes The Golden Legend, The Song 
of Hiawatha, The Courtship of Miles Standish, Tales of 
a Wayside l7in, The New England Tragedies, and a trans- 
lation of Dante's Divina Commedia. Mr. Longfellow's 
literary life began in his college days, and he wrote poems 
almost to the day of his death. A classification of his poems 
and longer works would be an interesting task, and would 
help to disclose the wide range of his sympathy and taste ; 
a collection of the metres which he has used would show 
the versatility of his art, and similar studies would lead one 
to discover the many countries and ages to which he went 
for subjects. It would not be difficult to gather from the 
volume of Longfellow's poems hints of personal experience, 
that biography of the heart wdiich is of more worth to us 
than any record, however full, of external change and adven- 
ture. Such hints may be found, for example, in the early 
lines, To the River Charles, which may be compared with 



BIOGRAPHICAL SKETCH. 365 

his recent Three Friends of Mine, iv., v. ; in A Gleam of 
Sunshine, To a CliUd, The Day is Done, The Fire of 
DrifUvood, Resignatio7i, The Open Windoiv, The Ladder 
of St. Augustine, My Lost Youth, The Children's Hour, 
Weariness, and other poems ; not that we are to take all 
sentiments and statements made in the first person as the 
poet's, for often the form of the poem is so far dramatic 
that the poet is assuming a character not necessarily his own, 
but the recurrence of certain strains, joined with personal 
allusions, helps one to penetrate the slight veil with which 
the poet, here as elsewhere, half conceals and half reveals 
himself. The friendly associations of the poet may also be 
discovered in several poems directly addressed to persons or 
distinctively alluding to them, and the reader will find it 
pleasant to construct the companionship of the poet out of 
such poems as The Herons of Elmivood, To William E. 
Channing, The Fiftieth Birthday of Agassiz, To Charles 
Simmer, the Prelude to Tales of a Wayside Inn, Haw- 
thorne, and other poems. An interesting study of Mr. 
Longfellow's writings will be found in a paper by W. D. 
HoweUs, in the North American Review, vol. civ. 



EVANGELINE: A TALE OF ACADIE. 

HISTORICAL INTRODUCTION. 

[The country now known as Nova Scotia, and called 
formerly Acadie by the French, was in the hands of the 
French and English by turns until the year 1713, when, by 
the Peace of Utrecht, it was ceded by France to Great Brit- 
ain, and has ever since remained in the possession of the 
English. But in 1713 the inhabitants of the peninsula were 
mostly French farmers and fishermen, living about Minas 
Basin and on Annapolis River, and the English government 
exercised only a nominal control over them. It was not till 
1749 that the English themselves began to make settlements 
in the country, and that year they laid the foundations of 
the town of Halifax. A jealousy soon sprang up between 
the English and French settlers, which was deepened by the 
great conflict which was impending between the two mother 
countries ; for the treaty of peace at Aix-la-Chapelle in 
1748, which confirmed the English title to Nova Scotia, was 
scarcely more than a truce between the two powers which 
had been struggling for ascendency during the beginning 
of the century. The French engaged in a long controversy 
with the English respecting the boundaries of Acadie, which 
had been defined by the treaties in somewhat general terms, 
and intrigues were carried on with the Indians, who were 
generally in sympathy with the French, for the annoyance 
of the English settlers. The Acadians were allied to the 
French by blood and by religion, but they claimed to have 
the rights of neutrals, and that these rights had been 



EVANGELINE. 367 

granted to them by previous English officers of the crown. 
The one point of special dispute was the oath of allegiance 
demanded of the Acadians by the English. This they re- 
fused to take, except in a form modified to excuse them 
from bearing arms against the French. The demand was 
repeatedly made, and evaded with constant ingenuity and 
persistency. Most of the Acadians were probably simple- 
minded and peaceful people, who desired only to live undis- 
turbed upon their farms ; but there were some restless spir- 
its, especially among the young men, who compromised the 
reputation of the community, and all were very much under 
the influence of their priests, some of whom made no secret 
of their bitter hostility to the English, and of their deter- 
mination to use every means to be rid of them. 

As the English interests grew and the critical relations 
between the two countries approached open warfare, the 
question of how to deal with the Acadian problem became 
the commanding one of the colony. There were some who 
coveted the rich farms of the Acadians ; there were some 
who were inspired by religious hatred ; but the prevailing 
spirit was one of fear for themselves from the near presence 
of a community which, calling itself neutral, might at any 
time offer a convenient ground for hostile attack. Yet to 
require these people to withdraw to Canada or Louisburg 
would be to strengthen the hands of the French, and make 
these neutrals determined enemies. The colony finally re- 
solved, without consulting the home government, to remove 
the Acadians to other parts of North America, distributing 
them through the colonies in such a way as to preclude any 
concert amongst the scattered families by which they should 
return to Acadia. To do this required quick -and secret 
preparations. There were at the service of the English 
governor a number of New England troops, brought thither 
for the capture of the forts lying in the debatable land about 
the head of the Bay of Fundy. These were under the com- 
mand of Lieutenant-Colonel John Winslow, of Massachu- 



368 HENRY WADSWORTH LONGFELLOW. 

setts, a great-grandson of Governor Edward Winslow, of 
Plymouth, and to this gentleman and Captain Alexander 
Murray was intrusted the task of removal. They were in- 
structed to use stratagem, if possible, to bring together the 
various families, but to prevent any from escaping to the 
woods. On the 2d of September, 1755, Winslow issued a 
written order, addressed to the inhabitants of Grand-Prd, 
Minas, River Canard, etc., " as well ancient as young men 
and lads," — a proclamation summoning all the males to 
attend him in the church at Grand-Pre on the 5th instant, 
to hear a communication which the governor had sent. As 
there had been negotiations respecting the oath of allegiance, 
and much discussion as to the withdrawal of the Acadians 
from the country, though none as to their removal and dis- 
persal, it was understood that this was an important meet- 
ing, and upon the day named four hundred and eighteen 
men and boys assembled in the church. Winslow, attended 
by his officers and men, caused a guard to be placed round 
the church, and then announced to the people his majesty's 
decision that they were to be removed with their families 
out of the country. The church became at once a guard- 
house, and all the prisoners were under strict surveillance. 
At the same time similar plans had been carried out at Pisi- 
quid under Captain Murray, and less successfully at Chig- 
necto. Meanwhile there were whispers of a rising among 
the prisoners, and although the transports which had been 
ordered from Boston had not yet arrived, it was determined 
to make use of the vessels which had conveyed the troops, 
and remove the men to these for safer keeping. This was 
done on the 10th of September, and the men remained on 
the vessels in the harbor until the arrival of the transports, 
when these were made use of, and about three thousand 
souls sent out of the country to North Carolina, Virginia, 
Maryland, Pennsylvania, New York, Connecticut, and Mas- 
sachusetts. In the haste and confusion of sending them off, 
— a haste which was increased by the anxiety of the offi- 



EVANGELINE. 369 

cers to be rid of the distasteful business, and a confusion 
which was greater from the difference of tongues, — many- 
families were separated, and some at least never came to- 
gether again. 

The story of Evangeline is the story of such a separation. 
The removal of the Acadians was a blot upon the govern- 
ment of Nova Scotia and upon that of Great Britain, which 
never disowned the deed, although it was probably done 
without direct permission or command from England. It 
proved to be unnecessary, but it must also be remembered 
that to many men at that time the English power seemed 
trembling before France, and that the colony at Halifax 
regarded the act as one of self-preservation. 

The authorities for an historical inquiry into this subject 
are best seen in a volume published by the government of 
Nova Scotia at Halifax in 1869, entitled Selections froiii 
the Public Documents of the Province of Nova Scotia, 
edited by Thomas B. Akins, D. C. L., Commissioner of 
Public Records ; and in a manuscript journal kept by Col- 
onel Winslow, now in the cabinet of the Massachusetts His- 
torical Society in Boston. At the State House in Boston 
are two volumes of records, entitled French Neutrals, which 
contain voluminous papers relating to the treatment of the 
Acadians who were sent to Massachusetts. Probably the 
work used by the j^oet in writing EvangeVme was An His- 
torical and Statistical Account of Nova Scotia, by Thomas 
C. Haliburton, who is best known as the author of The Clock- 
Maker, or The Sayings and Doings of Samuel Slick of 
Slickville, a book which, written apparently to prick the 
Nova Scotians into more enterprise, was for a long while the 
chief representative of Yankee smartness. Judge Halibur- 
ton's history was published in 1829. A later history, which 
takes advantage more freely of historical documents, is A 
History of Nova Scotia, or Acadie, by Beamish Murdock, 
Esq., Q. C, Halifax, 1866. Still more recent is a smaller, 
well-written work, entitled The History of Acadia from its 



370 HENRY WADSWORTH LONGFELLOW. 

First Discovery to its Surrender to England by the Treaty 
of Paris, by James Hannay, St. John, N. B., 1879. W. J. 
Anderson published a paper in the Transactions of the Lit- 
erary and Historical Society of Quebec, New Series, part 7, 
1870, entitled Evangeline and the Archives of Nova Sco- 
tia, in which he examines the poem by the light of the vol- 
ume of Nova Scotia Archives, edited by T. B. Akins. The 
sketches of travellers in Nova Scotia, as Acadia, or a Month 
among the Blue Noses, by F. S. Cozzens, and Baddeck, by 
C. D. Warner, give the present appearance of the country 
and inhabitants. 

The measure of Evangeline is what is commonly known 
as English dactylic hexameter. The hexameter is the mea- 
sure used by Homer in the Iliad and the Odyssey, and by 
Virgil in the JEneid, but the difference between the Eng- 
lish language and the Latin or Greek is so great, especially 
when we consider that in English poetry every word must 
be accented according to its customary pronounciation, 
while in scanning Greek and Latin verse accent follows the 
quantity of the vowels, that in applying this term of hexa- 
meter to Evangeline it must not be supposed by the reader 
that he is getting the effect of Greek hexameters. It is the 
Greek hexameter translated into English use, and some 
have maintained that the verse of the Iliad is better repre- 
sented in the English by the trocliaic measure of fifteen syl- 
lables, of which an excellent illustration is in Tennyson's 
Locksley Hall ; others have compared the Greek hexameter 
to the ballad metre of fourteen syllables, used notably by 
Chapman in his translation of Homer's Iliad. The mea- 
sure adopted by Mr. Longfellow has never become very 
popular in English poetry, but has repeatedly been at- 
tempted by other poets. The reader will find the subject 
of hexameters discussed by Matthew Arnold in his lectures 
On Translating Homer ; by James Spedding in English 
Hexameters, in his recent volume. Reviews and Discus- 
sions, Literary, Political and Historical, not relating to 



EVANGELINE. 371 

Bacon ; and by John Stuart Blackie in Remarks on Eng- 
lish Hexameters, contained in his volume HorcB Helle- 

niece. 

The measure lends itself easily to the lingering melan- 
choly which marks the greater part of the poem, and the 
poet's fine sense of harmony between subject and form is 
rarely better shown than in this poem. The fall of the 
verse at the end of the line and the sharp recovery at the 
beginning of the next will be snares to the reader, who 
must beware of a jerking style of delivery. The voice nat- 
urally seeks a rest in the middle of the line, and this rest, 
or c^sural pause, should be carefully regarded; a little 
practice will enable one to acquire that habit of reading the 
hexameter, which we may liken, roughly, to the climbing of 
a hill, resting a moment on the summit, and then descend- 
ing the other side. The charm in reading Evangeline 
aloud, after a clear understanding of the sense, which is the 
essential in all good reading, is found in this gentle labor of 
the former half of the line, and gentle acceleration of the 
latter half.] 

This is the forest primeval. The murmuring pines 
and the hemlocks, 

Bearded with moss, and in garments green, indistinct 
in the twilight. 

Stand like Druids of eld, with voices sad and pro- 
phetic, 

1. A primeval forest is, strictly speaking, one which has never 
been disturbed by the axe. 

3. Druids were priests of the Celtic inhabitants of ancient 
Gaul and Britain. The name was probably of Celtic origin, but 
its form may have been determined by the Greek word drus, an 
oak, since their places of worship were consecrated groves of 
oak. Perhaps the choice of the image was governed by the 
analogy of a religion and tribe that were to disappear before a 
stronger power. 



372 HENRY WADSWORTH LONGFELLOW. 

Stand like harpers hoar, with beards that rest on their 
bosoms. 

Loud from its rocky caverns, the deep-voiced neigh- 
boring ocean r, 

Speaks, and in accents disconsolate answers the wail 
of the forest. 

This is the forest primeval ; but where are the 
hearts that beneath it 

Leaped like the roe, when he hears in the woodland 
the voice of the huntsman ? 

Where is the thatch-roofed village, the home of Aca- 
dian farn\ers, — 

Men whose lives o-Hded on like rivers that water the 
woodlands, lo 

Darkened by shadows of earth, but reflecting an image 
of heaven ? 

Waste are those pleasant farms, and the farmers for- 
ever departed ! 

Scattered like dust and leaves, when the mighty blasts 
of October 

Seize them, and whirl them aloft, and sprinkle them 
far o'er the ocean. 

Naught but tradition remains of the beautiful village 
of Grand-Pre. is 

Ye who believe in affection that hopes, and endures, 
and is patient, 

4. A poetical description of an ancient harper will be found 
in the Introduction to the Lay of the Last Minstrel, by Sir Walter 
Scott. 

8. Observe how the tragedy of the story is anticipated by this 
picture of the startled roe. 



EVANGELINE. ^'^^ 

Ye who believe in the beauty and strength of woman's 

devotion, 
List to the mournful tradition still sung by the pnies 

of the forest ; 
List to a Tale of Love in Acadie, home of the happy. 



PART THE FIRST. 

I. 

In the Acadian land, on the shores of the Basin of 

Minas, • '' 

Distant, secluded, still, the little village of Grand-Pre 
Lay in the fruitful valley. Vast meadows stretched 

to the eastward. 
Giving the village its name, and pasture to flocks 

without number. 
Dikes, that the hands of the farmers had raised with 

labor incessant, 

19 111 the earliest records Acadie is called Cadie ; it after- 
wards was called Arcadia, Accadia, or L' Acadie. The name is 
probably a Freiich adaptation of a word common among the 
Micmac Indians living there, signifying place or region, and used 
as an affix to other words as indicating the place where various 
things, as cranberries, eels, seals, were found in abundance. Ihe 
French turned this Indian term into Cadie or Acadie ; the Ji.ng- 
lish into Quoddy, in which form it remains when applied to the 
Quoddy Indians, to Quoddy Head, the last point of the United 
States next to Acadia, and in the compound Passamaquoddy, or 

Pollock-Ground. . ^ -,, .^, , rri. 

21. Compare, for effect, the first Ime of Goldsmith s T^e 
Traveller. Grand-Prd will be found on the map as part ot the 
township of Horton. i . c ^u^ 

24 The people of Acadia are mainly the descendants ot the 
colonists who were brought out to La Have and Port ^^jalhy 
Isaac de Razilly and Charnisay between the years 1633 and lbd». 



374 HENRY WADSWORTH LONGFELLOW. 

Shut out the turbulent tides ; but at stated seasons the 

flood-gates 25 

Opened and welcomed the sea to wander at will o'er 

the meadows. 
West and south there were fields of flax, and orchards 

and cornfields 
Spreading afar and unf enced o'er the plain ; and away 

to the northward 
Blomidon rose, and the forests old, and aloft on the 

mountains 
Sea-fogs pitched their tents, and mists from the mighty 

^lantic 30 

Looked on the happy valley, but ne'er from their sta- 
tion descended. 
There, in the midst of its farms, reposed the Acadian 

village. 
Strongly built were the houses, with frames of oak and 

of hemlock. 
Such as the peasants of Normandy built in the reign 

of the Henries. 

These colonists came from Rochelle, Saintonge, and Poitou, so 
that they were drawn from a very limited area on the west coast 
of France, covered by the modern departments of Vendue and 
Charente Infdrieure. This circumstance had some influence on 
their mode of settling the lands of Acadia, for they came from a 
country of marshes, where the sea was kept out by artificial 
dikes, and they found in Acadia similar marshes, which they dealt 
with in the same way that they had been accustomed to practise 
in France. Hannay's History of Acadia, pp. 282, 283. An excel- 
lent account of dikes and the flooding of lowlands, as practised 
in Holland, may be found in A Farmer'' s Vacation, by George E. 
Waring, Jr. 

29. Blomidon is a mountainous headland of red sandstone, sur- 
mounted by a perpendicular wall of basaltic trap, the whole about 
four hundred feet in height, at the entrance of the Basin of 
Minas. 



EVANGELINE. 



375 



Thatched were the roofs, with dormer-windows ; and 

gables projecting ^5 

Over the basement below protected and shaded the 

doorway. 
There in the tranquil evenings of summer, when 

brightly the sunset 
Lighted the village street, and gilded the vanes on the 

chimneys, 
Matrons and maidens sat in snow-white caps and in 

kirtles 
Scarlet and blue and green, with distaffs spinning the 

golden 
Flax for the gossiping looms, whose noisy shuttles 

within doors 
Mingled their sound with the whir of the wheels and 

the songs of the maidens. 
Solemnly down the street came the parish priest, and 

the children 
Paused in their play to kiss the hand he extended to 

bless them. 
Reverend walked he among them ; and up rose ma- 
trons and maidens, 
Hailing his slow approach with words of affectionate 

welcome. 
Then came the laborers home from the field, and se- 
renely the sun sank 
36 The characteristics of a Normandy village may be further 
learned by reference to a pleasant little sketch-book, pubhsl^d 
a few years since, called Normandy Picturesque, by Henry Black- 
burn, and to Through Normandy, by Katharine S Macquoid. 

39. The term kirtle was sometimes applied to the 3acket only, 
sometimes to the train or upper petticoat attached to it. A full 
kirtle wa« always both; a half kirtle was a term apphed o 
either. A man's jacket was sometmies called a kirtle ; here the 
reference is apparently to the full kirtle worn by women. 



376 HENRY WADSWORTH LONGFELLOW. 

Down to his rest, and twilight prevailed. Anon from 

the belfry 
Softly the Angelus sounded, and over the roofs of the 

village 
Columns of pale blue smoke, like clouds of incense 

ascending, 50 

Rose from a hundred hearths, the homes of peace and 

contentment. 
Thus dwelt together in love these simple Acadian 

farmers, — 
Dwelt in the love of God and of man. Alike were 

they free from 
Fear, that reigns with the tyrant, and envy, the vice 

of republics. 
Neither locks had they to their doors, nor bars to their 

windows ; 55 

But their dwellings were open as day and the hearts 

of the owners ; 
There the richest was poor, and the poorest lived in 

abundance. 

Somewhat apart from the village, and nearer the 

Basin of Minas, 
Benedict Bellefontaine, the wealthiest farmer of 

Grand-Pre, 
Dwelt on his goodly acres ; and with him, directing 

his household, eo 

Gentle Evangeline lived, his child, and the pride of 

the village. 

49. Angelus Domini is the full name given to the bell which, at 
morning, noon, and night, called the people to prayer, in com- 
memoration of the visit of the angel of the Lord to the Virgin 
Mary. It was introduced into France in its modern form in the 
sixteenth century. 



EVANGELINE, 377 

Stalworth and stately in form was tbe man of seventy 

winters ; 
Hearty and hale was he, an oak that is covered with 

snow-flakes ; 
White as the snow were his locks, and his cheeks as 

brown as the oak-leaves. 
Fair was she to behold, that maiden of seventeen sum- 
mers ; 65 
Black were her eyes as the berry that grows on the 

thorn by the wayside. 
Black, yet how softly they gleamed beneath the brown 

shade of her tresses ! 
Sweet was her breath as the breath of kine that feed 

in the meadows. 
When in the harvest heat she bore to the reapers at 

noontide 
Flagons of home-brewed ale, ah ! fair in sooth was the 

maiden. 70 

Fairer was she when, on Sunday morn, while the bell 

from its turret 
Sprinkled with holy sounds the air, as the priest with 

his hyssop 
Sprinkles the congregation, and scatters blessings upon 

them, 
Down the long street she passed, with her chaplet of 

beads and her missal, 
Wearing her Norman cap and her kirtle of blue, and 

the ear-rings 75 

Brought in the olden time from France, and since, as 

an heirloom. 
Handed down from mother to child, through long gen- 
erations. 
But a celestial brightness — a more ethereal beauty — 
Shone on her face and encircled her form, when, after 

confession, 



378 HENRY WADSWORTH LONGFELLOW, 

Homeward serenely she walked with God's benedic- 
tion upon her. so 

When she had passed, it seemed like the ceasing of 
exquisite music. 

Firmly builded with rafters of oak, the house of 

the farmer 
Stood on the side of a hill commanding the sea ; and 

a shady 
Sycamore grew by the door, with a woodbine wreath- 
ing around it. 
Rudely carved was the porch, with seats beneath ; and 

a footpath 85 

Led through an orchard wide, and disappeared in the 

meadow. 
Under the sycamore-tree were hives overhung by a 

penthouse. 
Such as the traveller sees in regions remote by the 

roadside. 
Built o'er a box for the poor, or the blessed image of 

Mary. 
Farther down, on the slope of the hill, was the well 

with its moss-grown 90 

Bucket, fastened with iron, and near it a trongh for 

the horses. 
Shielding the house from storms, on the north, were 

the barns and the farm-yard ; 
There stood the broad-wheeled wains and the antique 

ploughs and the harrows ; 
There were the folds for the sheep ; and there, in his 

feathered seraglio, 

93. The accent is on the first syllable of antique, where it re- 
mains in the form antic, which once had the same general mean- 
ing. 



EVANGELINE. 379 

Strutted the lordly turkey, and crowed the cock, with 
the selfsame 95 

Voice that in ages of old had startled the penitent 
Peter. 

Bursting with hay were the barns, themselves a vil- 
lage. In each one 

Far o'er the gable projected a roof of thatch ; and a 
staircase. 

Under the sheltering eaves, led up to the odorous corn- 
loft. 

There too the dove-cot stood, with its meek and inno- 
cent inmates 100 

Murmuring ever of love ; while above in the variant 
breezes 

Numberless noisy weathercocks rattled and sang of 
mutation. 

Thus, at peace with God and the world, the farmer 

of Grand-Pre 
Lived on his sunny farm, and Evangeline governed 

his household. 
Many a youth, as he knelt in the church and opened 

his missal, 105 

Fixed his eyes upon her as the saint of his deepest 

devotion ; 

99. Odorous. The accent here, as well as in line 403, is upon 
the first syllable, where it is commonly placed ; but Milton, who 
of all poets had the most refined ear, writes 
" So from the root 
Springs lighter the green stalk, from thence the leaves 
More airy, last the bright consummate flower 
Spirits odorous breathes." 

Par. Lost, Book V., lines 479-482. 

But he also uses the more familiar accent in other passages, 
as, " An amber scent of ddorous perfume," in Samson Agonistes, 
line 720. 



380 HENRY WADSWORTH LONGFELLOW. 

Happy was he who might touch her hand or the hem 
of her garment ! 

Many a suitor came to her door, by the darkness be- 
friended, 

And, as he knocked and waited to hear the sound of 
her footsteps, 

Knew not which beat the louder, his heart or the 
knocker of iron ; uo 

Or, at the joyous feast of the Patron Saint of the vil- 
lage, 

Bolder grew, and pressed her hand in the dance as he 
whispered 

Hurried words of love, that seemed a part of the 
music. 

But among all who came young Gabriel only was 
welcome ; 

Gabriel Lajeunesse, the son of Basil the black- 
smith, n5 

Who was a mighty man in the village, and honored 
of all men ; 

For since the birth of time, throughout all ages and 
nations, 

Has the craft of the smith been held in repute by the 
people. 

Basil was Benedict's friend. Their children from 
earliest childhood 

Grew up together as brother and sister ; and Father 
Felician, 120 

Priest and pedagogue both in the village, had taught 
them their letters 

Out of the selfsame book, with the hymns of the 
church and the plain-song. 
122. The plain-song is a monotonic recitative of the collects. 



EVANGELINE. 381 

But when the hymn was sung, and the daily lesson 

completed, 
Swiftly they hurried away to the forge of Basil the 

blacksmith. 
There at the door they stood, with wondering eyes to 

behold him 12.5 

Take in his leathern lap the hoof of the horse as a 

plaything. 
Nailing the shoe in its place ; while near him the tire 

of the cart-wheel 
Lay like a fiery snake, coiled round in a circle of 

cinders. 
Oft on autumnal eves, when without in the gathering 

darkness 
Bursting with light seemed the smithy, through every 

cranny and crevice, 130 

Warm by the forge within they watched the laboring 

bellows. 
And as its panting ceased, and the sparks expired in 

the ashes, 
Merrily laughed, and said they were nuns going into 

the chapel. 
Oft on sledges in winter, as swift as the swoop of the 

eagle, 
Down the hillside bounding, they glided away o'er the 

meadow. i^s 

Oft in the barns they climbed to the populous nests 

on the rafters. 
Seeking with eager eyes that wondrous stone, which 

the swallow 
Brings from the shore of the sea to restore the sight 

of its fledglings ; 

133. The French have another saying similar to this, that they 
were guests going into the wedding. 



382 HENRY WADSWORTH LONGFELLOW. 

Lucky was lie who found that stone in the nest of the 

swallow ! 
Thus passed a few swift years, and they no longer 

were children. i40 

He was a valiant youth, and his face, like the face of 

the morning. 
Gladdened the earth with its light, and ripened 

thought into action. 
She was a woman now, with the heart and hopes of a 

woman. 
" Sunshine of Saint Eulalie " was she called ; for that 

was the sunshine 
Which, as the farmers believed, would load their 

orchards with apples ; i45 

She too would bring to her husband's house delight 

and abundance. 
Filling it full of love and the ruddy faces of children. 

II. 

Now had the season returned, when the nights grow 
colder and longer. 
And the retreating sun the sign of the Scorpion en- 
ters. 

139. In Pluquet's Contes Populaires we are told that if one of 
a swallow's young is blind the mother bird seeks on the shore of 
the ocean a little stone, with which she restores its sight ; and 
he adds, " He who is fortunate enough to find that stone in a 
swallow's nest holds a wonderful, remedy." Pluquet's book 
treats of Norman superstitions and popular traits. 

144. Pluquet also gives this proverbial saying : — 

** Si le soleil rit le jour Sainte-Eulalie, 
II y aura pomnies et cidre a folie." 

(If the sun smiles on Saint Eulalie's day, there will be plenty 
of apples, and cider enough.) 

Saint Eulalie's day is the 12th of February. 



EVANGELINE. 383 

Birds of passage sailed through the leaden air, from 
the ice-bound, 150 

Desolate northern bays to the shores of tropical is- 
lands. 

Harvests were gathered in ; and wild with the winds 
of September 

Wrestled the trees of the forest, as Jacob of old with 
the angel. 

All the signs foretold a winter long and inclement. 

Bees, with prophetic instinct of want, had hoarded 
their honey 155 

Till the hives overflowed ; and the Indian hunters as- 
serted 

Cold would the winter be, for thick was the fur of the 
foxes. 

Such was the advent of autumn. Then followed that 
beautiful season, 

Called by the pious Acadiay peasants the Summer of 
All-Saints ! 

Filled was the air with a dreamy and magical light ; 
and the landscape leo 

Lay as if new-created in all the freshness of child- 
hood. 

Peace seemed to reign upon earth, and the restless 
heart of the ocean 

Was for a moment consoled. All sounds were in 
harmony blended. 

Voices of children at play, the crowing of cocks in the 
farm-yards, 

159. The Summer of All-Saints is our Indian Summer, All- 
Saints Day being November 1st. The French also give this sea- 
son the name of Saint Martin's Summer, Saint Martin's Day 
being November 11th. 



384 HENRY WADSWORTH LONGFELLOW. 

Whir of wings in the drowsy air, and the cooing of 
pigeons, i65 

All were subdued and low as the murmurs of love, 
and the great sun 

Looked with the eye of love through the golden va- 
pors around him ; 

While arrayed in its robes of russet and scarlet and 
yellow, 

Bright with the sheen of the dew, each glittering tree 
of the forest 

Flashed like the plane-tree the Persian adorned with 
mantles and jewels. no 

Now recommenced the region of rest and affection 
and stillness. 

Day with its burden and heat had departed, and twi- 
light descending 

Brought back the evening star to the sky, and the 
herds to the homestead. 

Pawing the ground they came, and resting their necks 
on each other. 

And with their nostrils distended inhaling the fresh- 
ness of evening. 175 

Foremost, bearing the bell, Evangeline's beautiful 
heifer. 

Proud of her snow-white hide, and the ribbon that 
waved from her collar. 

Quietly paced and slow, as if conscious of human 
affection. 

170. Herodotus, in his account of Xerxes' expedition against 
Greece, tells of a beautiful plane-tree which Xerxes found, and 
was so enamored with that he dressed it as one might a woman, 
and placed it under the care of a guardsman (vii. 31). Another 
writer, j^^lian, improving on this, says he adorned it with a neck- 
lace and bracelets. 



EVANGELINE. 385 

Then came the shepherd back with his bleating flocks 
from the seaside, 

Where was their favorite pasture. Behind them fol- 
lowed the watch-dog, iso 

Patient, full of importance, and grand in the pride of 
his instinct. 

Walking from side to side with a lordly air, and 

superbly- 
Waving his bushy tail, and urging forward the strag- 
glers ; 

Regent of flocks was he when the shepherd slept; 
their protector, 

When from the forest at night, through the starry 
silence, the wolves howled. iss 

Late, with the rising moon, returned the wains from 
the marshes. 

Laden with briny hay, that filled the air with its odor. 

Cheerily neighed the steeds, with dew on their manes 
and their fetlocks, 

While aloft on their shoulders the wooden and pon- 
derous saddles. 

Painted with brilliant dyes, and adorned with tassels 
of crimson, wo 

Nodded in bright array, like hollyhocks heavy with 
blossoms. 

Patiently stood the cows meanwhile, and yielded their 
udders 

Unto the milkmaid's hand ; whilst loud and in regular 
cadence 

193. There is a charming milkmaid's song in Tennyson's drama 

of Queen Mary, Act III., Scene 5, where the streaming of the 

milk into the sounding pails is caught in the tinkling k's of such 

lines as 

" Aud you came and kissed me, milking the cow." 



386 HENRY WADS WORTH LONGFELLOW. 

Into the sounding pails the foaming streamlets de- 
scended. 

Lowing of cattle and peals of laughter were heard in 
the farm-3^ard, 195 

Echoed back by the barns. Anon they sank into 
stillness ; 

Heavily closed, with a jarring sound, the valves of the 
barn-doors, 

Rattled the wooden bars, and all for a season was silent. 

In-doors, warm by the wide-mouthed fireplace, idly 
the farmer 

Sat in his elbow-chair, and watched how the flames 
and the smoke-wreaths 200 

Struggled together like foes in a burning city. Be- 
hind him, 

Nodding and mocking along the wall with gestures 
fantastic. 

Darted his own huge shadow, and vanished away into 
darkness. 

Faces, clumsily carved in oak, on the back of his arm- 
chair 

Laughed in the flickering light, and the pewter plates 
on the dresser 205 

Caught and reflected the flame, as shields of armies 
the sunshine. 

Fragments of song the old man sang, and carols of 
Christmas, 

Such as at home, in the olden time, his fathers before 
him 

Sang in their Norman orchards and bright Burgundian 
vineyards. 

Close at her father's side was the gentle Evangeline 
seated, 210 



E VA NGEL INE. 387 

Spinning flax for the loom that stood in the corner 

behind her. 
Silent awhile were its treadles, at rest was its dihgent 

shuttle, 
While the monotonous drone of the wheel, like the 

drone of a bagpipe. 
Followed the old man's song, and united the fragments 

together. 
As in a church, when the chant of the choir at inter- 
vals ceases, 215 
Footfalls are heard in the aisles, or words of the priest 

at the altar. 
So, in each pause of the song, with measured motion 

the clock clicked. 

Thus as they sat, there were footsteps heard, and, 

suddenly lifted. 
Sounded the wooden latch, and the door swung back 

on its hinges. 
Benedict knew by the hob-nailed shoes it was Basil 

the blacksmith, 22.) 

And by her beating heart Evangeline knew who was 

with him. 
" Welcome I " the farmer exclaimed, as their footsteps 

paused on the threshold, 
" Welcome, Basil, my friend ! Come, take thy place 

on the settle 
Close by the chimney-side, which is always empty 

without thee ; 
Take from the shelf overhead thy pipe and the box of 

tobacco ; ^^^ 

Never so much thyself art thou as when, through the 

curling 
Smoke of the pipe or the forge, thy friendly and jovial 

face gleams 



388 HENRY WADSWORTH LONGFELLOW. 

Kound and red as the harvest moon through the mist 
of the marshes." 

Then, with a smile of content, thus answered Basil the 
blacksmith. 

Taking with easy air the accustomed seat by the fire- 
side : 230 

" Benedict Bellefontaine, thou hast ever thy jest and 

thy ballad ! 
Ever in cheerfullest mood art thou, when others are 

filled with 
Gloomy forebodings of ill, and see only ruin before 

them. 
Happy art thou, as if every day thou hadst picked up 

a horseshoe." 
Pausing a moment, to take the pipe that Evangeline 

brought him, 235 

And with a coal from the embers had lighted, he 

slowly continued : — 
*' Four days now are passed since the English ships 

at their anchors 
Ride in the Gaspereau's mouth, with their cannon 

pointed against us. 
What their design may be is unknown ; but all are 

commanded 
On the morrow to meet in the church, where his 

Majesty's mandate 240 

Will be proclaimed as law in the land. Alas ! in the 

mean time 
Many surmises of evil alarm the hearts of the peo- 
ple." 
Then made answer the farmer : — " Perhaps some 

friendlier purpose 

239. The text of Colonel Winslow's proclamation will be found 
in Hallburton, i. 175. 



EVANGELINE. 389 

Brings these ships to our shores. Perhaps the har- 
vests in England 

By untimely rains or untimelier heat have been 
blighted, 245 

And from our bursting barns they would feed their 
cattle and children." 

" Not so thinketh the folk in the village," said warmly 
the blacksmith. 

Shaking his head as in doubt ; then, heaving a sigh, 
he continued : — 

" Louisburg is not forgotten, nor Beau Sejour, nor 
Port Royal. 

Many already have fled to the forest, and lurk on its 
outskirts, ~ 250 

Waiting with anxious hearts the dubious fate of to- 
morrow. 

Arms have been taken from us, and warlike weapons 
of all kinds ; 

Nothing is left but the blacksmith's sledge and the 
scythe of the mower." 

Then with a pleasant smile made answer the jovial 
farmer : — 



249. Louisburg, on Cape Breton, was built by the French as a 
military and naval station early in the eighteenth century, but 
was taken by an expedition from Massachusetts under General 
Pepperell in 1745. It was restored by England to France in the 
treaty of Aix-la-Chapelle, and recaptured by the English in 
1757. Beau Sejour was a French fort upon the neck of land 
connecting Acadia with the mainland which had just been cap- 
tured by Winslow's forces. Port Royal, afterwards called Anna- 
polis Royal, at the outlet of Annapolis River into the Bay of 
Fundy, had been disputed ground, being occupied alternately by 
French and English, but in 1710 was attacked by an expedition 
from New England, and after that held by the English govern- 
ment and made a fortified place. 



390 HENRY WADSWORTH LONGFELLOW. 

*' Safer are we unarmed, in the midst of our flocks 

and our cornfields, 255 

Safer within these peaceful dikes besieged by the ocean, 
Than our fathers in forts, besieged by the enemy's 

cannon. 
Fear no evil, my friend, and to-night may no shadow 

of sorrow 
Fall on this house and hearth ; for this is the night 

of the contract. 
Built are the house and the barn. The merry lads of 

the village 260 

Strongly have built them and well ; and, breaking the 

glebe round about them, 
Filled the barn with hay, and the house with food for 

a twelvemonth. 
Rene Leblanc will be here anon, with his papers and 

inkhorn. 
Shall we not then be glad, and rejoice in the joy of 

our children ? " 
As apart by the window she stood, with her hand in 

her lover's, 265 

Blushing Evangeline heard the words that her father 

had spoken, 
And, as they died on his lips, the worthy notary en- - 

tered. 

III. 
Bent like a laboring oar, that toils in the surf of 

the ocean, 

267. A notary is an officer authorized to attest contracts or 
writings of any kind. His authority varies in different coun- 
tries ; in France he is the necessary maker of all contracts where 
the subject-matter exceeds 150 francs, and his instruments, 
which are preserved and registered by himself, are the origi- 
nals, the parties preserving only copies. 



275 



EVANGELINE. 391 

Bent, but not broken, by age was the form of the no- 
tary public ; 

Shocks of yellow hair, like the silken floss of the 
maize, hung ^ 270 

Over his shoulders; his forehead was high; and 
glasses with horn bows 

Sat astride on his nose, with a look of wisdom supernal. 

Father of twenty children was he, and more than a 
hundred 

Children's children rode on his knee, and heard his 
great watch tick. 

Tour long years in the times of the war had he Ian 
guished a captive, ^ 27 

Suffering much in an old French fort as the friend of 
the English. 

Now, though warier grown, without all guile or sus- 
picion. 

Ripe in wisdom was he, but patient, and simple, and 
childlike. 

He was beloved by all, and most of all by the chil- 
dren ; 

For he told them tales of the Loup-garou in the for- 
est, 280 

275. King George's War, which broke out in 1744 in Cape 
Breton, in an attack by the French upon an English garrison, 
and closed with the peace of Aix-la-Chapelle in 1748 ; or, the 
reference may possibly be to Queen Anne's war, 1702-1713, 
when the French aided the Indians in their warfare with the col- 
onists. 

280. The Loup-garou, or were-wolf, is, according to an old su- 
perstition especially prevalent in France, a man with power to 
turn himself into a wolf, which he does that he may devour chil- 
dren. In later times the superstition passed into the more inno- 
cent one of men having a power to charm wolves. 



392 HENRY WADS WORTH LONGFELLOW. 

And of the goblin that came in the night to water the 

horses, 
And of the white Letiche, the ghost of a child who 

unchristened 
Died, and was doomed to haunt unseen the chambers 

of children ; 
And how on Christmas eve the oxen talked in the 

stable. 
And how the fever was cured by a spider shut up in 

a nutshell, 235 

And of the marvellous powers of four-leaved clover 

and horseshoes. 
With whatsoever else was writ in the lore of the vilWe. 
Then up rose from his seat by the fireside Basil the 

blacksmith. 
Knocked from his pipe the ashes, and slowly extend- 
ing his right hand, 
" Father Leblanc," he exclaimed, " thou hast heard 

the talk in the village, 290 

And, perchance, canst tell us some news of these ships 

and their errand." 
Then with modest demeanor made answer the notary 

public, — 
" Gossip enough have I heard, in sooth, yet am never 

the wiser ; 

282. Pluquet relates this superstition, and conjectures that the 
white, fleet erniine gave rise to it. 

284. A belief still lingers among the peasantry of England, as 
well as on the Continent, that at midnight, on Christmas eve, the 
cattle in the stalls fall down on their knees in adoration of the 
infant Saviour, as the old legend says was done in the stable at 
Bethlehem. 

285. In like manner a popular superstition prevailed in Eng- 
land that ague could be cured by sealing a spider in a goose- 
quill and hanging it about the neck. 



EVANGELINE. 393 

And what their errand may be I know no better than 
others. 

Yet am I not of those who imagine some evil inten- 
tion 295 

Brings them here, for we are at peace ; and why then 
molest us ? " 

" God's name ! " shouted the hasty and somewhat iras- 
cible blacksmith ; 

" Must we in all things look for the how, and the why, 
and the wherefore ? 

Daily injustice is done, and might is the right of the 
strongest ! " 

But, without heeding his warmth, continued the notary 
public, — =^00 

" Man is unjust, but God is just ; and finally justice 

Triumphs ; and well I remember a story, that often 
consoled me. 

When as a captive I lay in the old French fort at 
Port Royal." 

This was the old man's favorite tale, and he loved to 
repeat it 

When his neighbors complained that any injustice was 
done them. ^^^ 

" Once in an ancient city, whose name I no longer re- 
member. 

Raised aloft on a column, a brazen statue of Justice 

Stood in the public square, upholding the scales in its 
left hand. 

And in its right a sword, as an emblem that justice 
presided 

Over the laws of the land, and the hearts and homes 
of the people. ^lo 

302. This is an old Florentine story ; in an altered form it is 
the theme of Rossini's opera of La Gazza Ladra. 



394 HENRY WADSWORTH LONGFELLOW. 

Even the birds had built their nests in the scales of 
the balance, 

Having no fear of the sword that flashed in the sun- 
shine above them. 

But in the course of time the laws of the land were 
corrupted ; 

Might took the place of right, and the weak were 
oppressed, and the mighty 

Ruled with an iron rod. Then it chanced in a noble- 
man's palace 315 

That a necklace of pearls was lost, and ere long a sus- 
picion 

Fell on an orphan girl who lived as maid in the house- 
hold. 

She, after form of trial condemned to die on the scaf- 
fold, 

Patiently met her doom at the foot of the statue of 
Justice. 

As to her Father in heaven her innocent spirit as- 
cended, 320 

Lo ! o'er the city a tempest rose ; and the bolts of the 
thunder 

Smote the statue of bronze, and hurled in wrath from 
its left hand 

Down on the pavement below the clattering scales of 
the balance. 

And in the hollow thereof was found the nest of a 
magpie. 

Into whose clay-built walls the necklace of pearls was 
inwoven." 325 

Silenced, but not convinced, when the story was ended, 
the blacksmith 

Stood like a man who fain would speak, but findeth 
no language ; 



EVANGELINE. 395 

All his thoughts were congealed into lines on his face, 

as the vapors 
Freeze in fantastic shapes on the window-panes in the 

winter. 

Then Evangeline lighted the brazen lamp on the 
table, 330 

Filled, till it overflowed, the pewter tankard with 
home-brewed 

Nut-brown ale, that was famed for its strength in the 
village of Grand-Pre ; 

While from his pocket the notary drew his papers and 
inkhorn. 

Wrote with a steady hand the date and the age of the 
parties. 

Naming the dower of the bride in flocks of sheep and 
in cattle. 335 

Orderly all things proceeded, and duly and well were 
completed. 

And the great seal of the law was set like a sun on 
the margin. 

Then from his leathern pouch the farmer threw on the 
table 

Three times the old man's fee in solid pieces of sil- 
ver; 

And the notary rising, and blessing the bride and 
bridegroom, 340 

Lifted aloft the tankard of ale and drank to their 
welfare. 

Wiping the foam from his lip, he solemnly bowed and 
departed. 

While in silence the others sat and mused by the fire- 
side, 



396 HENRY WADSWORTH LONGFELLOW. 

Till Evangeline brought the draught-board out of its 

corner. 
Soon was the game begun. In friendly contention 

the old men 345 

Laughed at each lucky hit, or unsuccessful manoeuvre, 
Laughed when a man was crowned, or a breach was 

made in the king-row. 
Meanwhile apart, in the twilight gloom of a window's 

embrasure. 
Sat the lovers and whispered together, beholding the 

moon rise 
Over the pallid sea and the silvery mist of the mead- 
ows. 350 
Silently one by one, in the infinite meadows of heaven, 
Blossomed the lovely stars, the forget-me-nots of the 

angels. 

Thus was the evening passed. Anon the bell from 

the belfry 
Rang out the hour of nine, the village curfew, and 

straightway 
Rose the guests and departed ; and silence reigned in 

the household. 355 

344. The word draughts is derived from the circumstance of 
drawing the men from one square to another. 

354. Curfew is a corruption of couvre-feu, or cover fire. In 
the Middle Ages, when police patrol at night was almost un- 
known, it was attempted to lessen the chances of crime by mak- 
ing it an offence against the laws to be found in the streets in 
the night, and the curfcAv bell was tolled, at various hours, ac- 
cording to the custom of the place, from seven to nine o'clock in 
the evening. It warned honest people to lock their doors, cover 
their fires, and go to bed. The custom still lingers in many 
places, even in America, of ringing a bell at nine o'clock in the 
evening. 



EVANGELINE. 397 

Many a farewell word and sweet good-niglit on the 
door- step 

Lingered long in Evangeline's heart, and filled it with 
gladness. 

Carefully then were covered the embers that glowed 
on the hearth-stone, 

And on the oaken stairs resounded the tread of the 
farmer. 

Soon with a soundless step the foot of Evangeline fol- 
lowed. 360 

Up the staircase moved a luminous space in the dark- 
ness, 

Lighted less by the lamp than the shining face of the 
maiden. 

Silent she passed through the hall, and entered the 
door of her chamber. 

Simple that chamber was, with its curtains of white, 
and its clothes-press 

Ample and high, on whose spacious shelves were care- 
fully folded 365 

Linen and woollen stuffs, by the hand of Evangeline 
woven. 

This was the precious dower she would bring to her 
husband in marriage, 

Better than flocks and herds, being proofs of her skill 
as a housewife. 

Soon she extinguished her lamp, for the mellow and 
radiant moonlight 

Streamed through the windows, and lighted the room, 
till the heart of the maiden 370 

Swelled and obeyed its power, like the tremulous tides 
of the ocean. 

Ah ! she was fair, exceeding fair to behold, as she 
stood with 



398 HENRY WADS WORTH LONGFELLOW. 

Naked snow-white feet on the gleaming floor of her 

chamber ! 
Little she dreamed that below, among the trees of the 

orchard, 
Waited her lover and watched for the gleam of her 

lamp and her shadow. 375 

Yet were her thoughts of him, and at times a feeling 

of sadness 
Passed o'er her soul, as the sailing shade of clouds in 

the moonlight 
Flitted across the floor and darkened the room for a 

moment. 
And, as she gazed from the window, she saw serenely 

the moon pass 
Forth from the folds of a cloud, and one star follow 

her footsteps, 380 

As out of Abraham's tent young Ishmael wandered 

with Hagar. 

IV. 

Pleasantly rose next morn the sun on the village 

of Grand-Pre. 
Pleasantly gleamed in the soft, sweet air the Basin of 

Minas, 
Where the ships, with their wavering shadows, were 

riding at anchor. 
Life had long been astir in the village, and clamorous 

labor 385 

Knocked with its hundred hands at the golden gates 

of the morning. 
Now from the country around, from the farms and 

neighboring hamlets. 
Came in their holiday dresses the blithe Acadian 

peasants. 



EVANGELINE. 399 

Many a glad good-morrow and jocund laugh from the 
young folk 

Made the bright air brighter, as up from the numer- 
ous meadows, 390 

Where no path could be seen but the track of wheels 
in the greensward, 

Group after group appeared, and joined, or passed on 
the highway. 

Long ere noon, in the village all sounds of labor were 
silenced. 

Thronged were the streets with people; and noisy 
groups at the house-doors 

Sat in the cheerful sun, and rejoiced and gossiped to- 
gether. 395 

Every house was an inn, where all were welcomed and 
feasted ; 

For with this simple people, who lived like brothers 
together, 

All things were held in common, and what one had 
was another's. 

Yet under Benedict's roof hospitality seemed more 
abundant : 

396. "Real misery was wholly unknown, and benevolence 
anticipated the demands of poverty. Every misfortune was re- 
lieved as it were before it could be felt, without ostentation on 
the one hand, and without meanness on the other. It was, in 
short, a society of brethren, every individual of which was 
equally ready to give and to receive what he thought the com- 
mon right of mankind." — From the Abbd Raynal's account of 
the Acadians. The Abbd Guillaume Thomas Francis Raynal 
was a French writer (1711-1796), who published A Philosophi- 
cal History of the Settlements and Trade of the Europeans in the 
East and West Indies, in which he included also some account of 
Canada and Nova Scotia. His picture of life among the Aca- 
dians, somewhat highly colored, is the source from which after 
writers have drawn their knowledge of Acadian manners. 



400 HENRY WADS WORTH LONGFELLOW. 

For Evangeline stood among the guests of her 
father ; 400 

Bright was her face with smiles, and words of wel- 
come and gladness 

Fell from her beautiful lips, and blessed the cup as 
she gave it. 

Under the open sky, in the odorous air of the 
orchard, 

Stript of its golden fruit, was spread the feast of be- 
trothal. 

There in the shade of the porch were the priest and 
the notary seated ; 405 

There good Benedict sat, and sturdy Basil the black- 
smith. 

Not far withdrawn from these, by the cider-press and 
the beehives, 

Michael the fiddler was placed, with the gayest of 
hearts and of waistcoats. 

Shadow and light from the leaves alternately played 
on his snow-white 

Hair, as it waved in tlie wind ; and the jolly face of 
the fiddler 410 

Glowed like a living coal when the ashes are blown 
from the embers. 

Gayly the old man sang to the vibrant sound of his 
fiddle, 

Toils les Bou7'geois de Chartres^ and Le Carillon de 
Dunherque^ 

413. Tons les Bourgeois de Chartres was a song written by 
Ducauroi, ma'dre de chapelle of Henri IV., the words of which 
are : — 

Vous connaissez Cyb^le, 
Qui sut fixer le Temps ; 
On la disait fort belle, 
M@me dans ses vieux ans. 



EVANGELINE. 401 

And anon witli his wooden shoes beat time to the 

music. 
Merrily, merrily whirled the wheels of the dizzying 

dances 415 

Under the orchard-trees and down the path to the 

meadows ; 
Old folk and young together, and children mingled 

among them. 
Fairest of all the maids was Evangeline, Benedict's 

daughter ! 
Noblest of all the youths was Gabriel, son of the 

blacksmith ! 

So passed the morning away. And lo ! with a sum- 
mons sonorous 420 

Sounded the bell from its tower, and over the mead- 
ows a drum beat. 

Throno^ed ere long: was the church with men. With- 
out, in the churchyard, 



Cette divinity, quoique deja grand' mere 
Avait les yeux doux, le teint frais, 
Avait meme certains attraits 
Fernies comma la Terre. 

Le Carillon de Dunkerque was a popular song to a tune played 

on the Dunkirk chimes. The words are : — 

Imprudent, tt^mi^raire 
A I'instaut, je I'espere 
Dans mon juste courroux, 
Tu vas tomber sous mes coups ! 

— Je brave ta menace. 

— Etre moi ! quelle audace ! 
Avance done, poltron ! 

Tu trembles? non, non, non. 

— J'^touffe de colere ! 
, — Je ris de ta colere. 

The music to which the old man sang these songs will be found 
in La Cle du Caveau, by Pierre Capelle, Nos. 564 and 739. 
Paris : A. Cotelle. 



402 HENRY WADS WORTH LONGFELLOW. 

Waited the women. They stood by the graves, and 

hung- on the headstones 
Garlands of autumn-leaves and evergreens fresh from 

the forest. 
Then came the guard from the ships, and marching 

proudly among them 425 

Entered the sacred portal. With loud and dissonant 

clangor 
Echoed the sound of their brazen drums from ceiling 

and casement, — 
Echoed a moment only, and slowly the ponderous por- 
tal 
Closed, and in silence the crowd awaited the will of 

the soldiers. 
Then uprose their commander, and spake from the 

steps of the altar, 430 

Holding aloft in his hands, with its seals, the royal 

commission. 
" You are convened this day," he said, " by his Maj- 
esty's orders. 
Clement and kind has he been ; but how you have 

answered his kindness 
Let your own hearts reply ! To my natural make and 

my temper 
Painful the task is I do, which to you I know must 

be grievous. 435 

Yet must I bow and obey, and deliver the will of our 

monarch : 
Namely, that all your lands, and dwellings, and cattle 

of all kinds 
Forfeited be to the crown ; and that you yourselves 

from this province 

432. Colonel Wiuslow has preserved in his Diary the speech 
which he delivered to the assembled Acadians, and it is copied 
by Haliburton in his History of Nam Scotia, i. 16G, 167. 



EVANGELINE. 403 

Be transported to other lands. God grant you may 

dwell there 
Ever as faithful subjects, a happy and peaceable peo- 
ple ! 440 
Prisoners now I declare you, for such is his Majesty's 

pleasure ! " 
As, when the air is serene in the sultry solstice of 

summer. 
Suddenly gathers a storm, and the deadly sling of the 

hailstones 
Beats down the farmer's corn in the field, and shatters 

his windows, 
Hiding the sun, and strewing the ground with thatch 

from the house-roofs, 445 

Bellowing fly the herds, and seek to break their en- 
closures ; 
So on the hearts of the people descended the words of 

the speaker. 
Silent a moment they stood in speechless wonder, and 

then rose 
Louder and ever louder a wail of sorrow and anger. 
And, by one impulse moved, they madly rushed to the 

door-way. 450 

Vain was the hope of escape; and cries and fierce 

imprecations 
Rang through the house of prayer ; and high o'er the 

heads of the others 
Kose, with his arms uplifted, the figure of Basil the 

blacksmith. 
As, on a stormy sea, a spar is tossed by the billows. 
Flushed was his face and distorted with passion ; and 

wildly he shouted, — 455 

" Down witli the tyrants of England ! we never have 

sworn them allegiance ! 



404 HENRY WADSWORTH LONGFELLOW. 

Death to these foreign soMiers, who seize on our 

homes and our harvests ! " 
More he fain would have said, but the merciless hand 

of a soldier 
Smote him upon the mouth, and dragged him down to 

the pavement. 

In the midst of the strife and tumult of angry con- 
tention, 460 
Lo ! the door of the chancel opened, and Father Feli- 

cian 
Entered, with serious mien, and ascended the steps of 

the altar. 
Raising his reverend hand, with a gesture he awed 

into silence 
All that clamorous throng ; and thus he spake to his 

people ; 
Deep were his tones and solemn ; in accents measured 

and mournful 465 

Spake he, as, after the tocsin's alarum, distinctly the 

clock strikes. 
" What is this that ye do, my children ? what madness 

has seized you ? 
Forty years of my life have I labored among you, and 

taught you. 
Not in word alone, but in deed, to love one another ! 
Is this the fruit of my toils, of my vigils and prayers 

and privations ? 470 

Have 3^ou so soon forgotten all lessons of love and 

forgiveness ? 
This is the house of the Prince of Peace, and would 

you profane it 
Thus with violent deeds and hearts overflowing with 

hatred ? 



EVANGELINE, 405 

Lo ! where the crucified Christ from His cross is gaz- 
ing upon you ! 

See ! in those sorrowful eyes what meekness and holy 
compassion ! 475 

Hark ! how those lips still repeat the prayer, ' O 
Father, forgive them ! ' 

Let us repeat that prayer in the hour when the wicked 
assail us. 

Let us repeat it now, and say, ' O Father, forgive 
them!'" 

Few were his words of rebuke, but deep in the hearts 
of his people 

Sank they, and sobs of contrition succeeded the pas- 
sionate outbreak, 48o 

While they repeated his prayer, and said, " O Father, 
forgive them ! " 

Then came the evening service. The tapers gleamed 

from the altar ; 
Fervent and deep was the voice of the priest, and the 

people responded, 
Not with their lips alone, but their hearts; and the 

Ave Maria 
Sang they, and fell on their knees, and their souls, 

with devotion translated, 485 

Rose on the ardor of prayer, like Elijah ascending to 

heaven. 

Meanwhile had spread in the village the tidings of 

ill, and on all sides 
Wandered, wailing, from house to house the women 

and children. 
Long at her father's door Evangeline stood, with her 

right hand 



406 HENRY WADSWORTH LONGFELLOW. 

Shielding her eyes from the level rays of the sun, 
that, descending, 490 

Lighted the village street with mysterious splendor, 
and roofed each 

Peasant's cottage with golden thatch, and emblazoned 
its windows. 

Long within had been spread the snow-white cloth on 
the table ; 

There stood the wheaten loaf, and the honey fragrant 
with wild flowers ; 

There stood the tankard of ale, and the cheese fresh 
brought from the dairy ; 495 

And at the head of the board the great arm-chair of 
the farmer. 

Thus did Evangeline wait at her father's door, as the 
sunset 

Threw the long shadows of tnees o'er the broad am- 
brosial meadows. 

Ah ! on her spirit within a deeper shadow had fallen, 

And from the fields of her soul a fragrance celestial 
ascended, — 500 

Charity, meekness, love, and hope, and forgiveness, 
and patience ! 

Then, all forgetful of self, she wandered into the vil- 
lage. 

Cheering with looks and words the mournful hearts of 
the women. 

As o'er the darkening fields with lingering steps they 
departed. 

Urged by their household cares, and the weary feet of 
their children. 505 

492. To emblazon is literally to adorn anything with ensigns 
armorial. It was often the custom to work these ensigns into 
the design of painted windows. 



EVANGELINE. 407 

Down sank the great red sun, and in golden, glimmer- 
ing vapors 

Veiled the light of his face, like the Prophet descend- 
ing from Sinai. 

Sweetly over the village the bell of the Angelas 
sounded. 

Meanwhile, amid the gloom, by the church Evange- 
line lingered. 
All was silent within ; and in vain at the door and the 

windows sio 

Stood she, and listened and looked, until, overcome by 

emotion, 
" Gabriel ! " cried she aloud with tremulous voice ; 

but no answer 
Came from the graves of the dead, nor the gloomier 

grave of the living. 
Slowly at length she returned to the tenantless house 

of her father. 
Smouldered the fire on the hearth, on the board was 

the supper untasted. 515 

Empty and drear was each room, and haunted with 

phantoms of terror. 
Sadly echoed her step on the stair and the floor of her 

chamber. 
In the dead of the night she heard the disconsolate 

rain fall 
Loud on the withered leaves of the sycamore-tree by 

the window. 
Keenly the lightning flashed ; and the voice of the 

echoing thunder 520 

Told her that God was in heaven, and governed the 

world He created! 



408 HENRY WADSWORTH LONGFELLOW. 

Then she remembered the tale she had heard of the 

justice of Heaven ; 
Soothed was her troubled soul, and she peacefully 

slumbered till morning. 

V. 

Four times the sun had risen and set ; and now on 
the fifth day 

Cheerily called the cock to the sleeping maids of the 
farm-house. 525 

Soon o'er the yellow fields, in silent and mournful pro- 
cession, 

Came from the neighboring hamlets and farms the 
Acadian women, 

Driving in ponderous wains their household goods to 
the sea-shore, 

Pausing and looking back to gaze once more on their 
dwellings. 

Ere they were shut from sight by the winding road and 
the woodland. 530 

Close at their sides their children ran, and urged on 
the oxen, 

While in their little hands they clasped some frag- 
ments of playthings. 

Thus to the Gaspereau's mouth they hurried ; and 

there on the sea-beach 
Piled in confusion lay the household goods of the 

peasants. 
All day long between the shore and the ships did the 

boats ply ; 535 

All day long the wains came laboring down from the 

village. 
Late in the afternoon, when the sun was near to his 

setting, 



EVANGELINE. 409 

Echoed far o'er the fields came the roll of drums from 
the churchyard. 

Thither the women and children thronged. On a sud- 
den the church-doors 

Opened, and forth came the guard, and marching in 
gloomy procession 540 

Followed the long-imprisoned, but patient, Acadian 
farmers. 

Even as pilgrims, who journey afar from their homes 
and their country, 

Sing as they go, and in singing forget they are weary 
and wayworn, 

So with songs on their lips the Acadian peasants de- 
scended 

Down from the church to the shore, amid their wives 
and their daughters. 545 

Foremost the young men came ; and, raising together 
their voices, 

Sang with tremulous lips a chant of the Catholic 
Missions : — 

*' Sacred heart of the Saviour ! O inexhaustible foun- 
tain! 

Fill our hearts this day with strength and submission 
and patience ! " 

Then the old men, as they marched, and the women 
that stood by the wayside 550 

Joined in the sacred psalm, and the birds in the sun- 
shine above them 

Mingled their notes therewith, like voices of spirits 
departed. 

Half-way down to the shore Evangeline waited in 
silence. 
Not overcome with grief, but strong in the hour of 
affliction, — 



410 HENRY WADSWORTH LONGFELLOW. 

Calmly and sadly she waited, until the procession ap- 
proached her, 555 

And she beheld the face of Gabriel pale with emotion. 

Tears then filled her eyes, and, eagerly running to 
meet him. 

Clasped she his hands, and laid her head on his 
shoulder, and whispered, — 

" Gabriel ! be of good cheer ! for if we love one 
another 

Nothing, in truth, can harm us, whatever mischances 
may happen ! " seo 

Smiling she spake these words ; then suddenly paused, 
for her father 

Saw she, slowly advancing. Alas ! how changed was 
his aspect ! 

Gone was the glow from his cheek, and the fire from 
his eye, and his footstep 

Heavier seemed with the weight of the heavy heart 
in his bosom. 

But with a smile and a sigh, she clasped his neck and 
embraced him, 565 

Speaking words of endearment where words of com- 
fort availed not. 

Thus to the Gaspereau's mouth moved on that mourn- 
ful procession. 

There disorder prevailed, and the tumult and stir of 

embarking. 
Busily plied the freighted boats ; and in the confusion 
Wives were torn from their husbands, and mothers, 

too late, saw their children 570 

Left on the land, extending their arms, with wildest 

entreaties. 
So unto separate ships were Basil and Gabriel carried, 



EVANGELINE. 411 

While in despair on the shore Evangeline stood with 

her father. 
Half the task was not done when the sun went down, 

and the twilight 
Deepened and darkened around; and in haste the 

refluent ocean 575 

Fled away from the shore, and left the line of the 

sand-beach 
Covered with waifs of the tide, with kelp and the slip- 
pery sea-weed. 
Farther back in the midst of the household goods and 

the wagons, 
Like to a gypsy camp, or a leaguer after a battle. 
All escape cut off by the sea, and the sentinels near 

them, 580 

Lay encamped for the night the houseless Acadian 

farmers. 
Back to its nethermost caves retreated the bellowing 

ocean. 
Dragging adown the beach the rattling pebbles, and 

leaving 
Inland and far up the shore the stranded boats of the 

sailors. 
Then, as the night descended, the herds returned from 

their pastures ; sss 

Sweet was the moist still air with the odor of milk 

from their udders ; 
Lowing they waited, and long, at the well-known bars 

of the farm-yard, — 
Waited and looked in vain for the voice and the hand 

of the milkmaid. 
Silence reigned in the streets ; from the church no 

Angelus sounded. 
Rose no smoke from the roofs, and gleamed no lights 

from the windows. 590 



412 HENRY WADSWORTH LONGFELLOW. 

But on the shores meanwhile the evening fires had 

been kindled, 
Built of the drift-wood thrown on the sands from 

wrecks in the tempest. 
Round them shapes of gloom and sorrowful faces were 

gathered, 
Voices of women were heard, and of men, and the 

crying of children. 
Onward from fire to fire, as from hearth to hearth in 

his parish, 595 

Wandered the faithful priest, consoling and blessing 

and cheering. 
Like unto shipwrecked Paul on Melita's desolate sea- 
shore. 
Thus he approached the place where Evangeline sat 

with her father. 
And in the flickering light beheld the face of the old 

man. 
Haggard and hollow and wan, and without either 

thought or emotion, eoo 

E'en as the face of a clock from which the hands have 

been taken. 
Vainly Evangeline strove with words and caresses to 

cheer him. 
Vainly offered him food ; yet he moved not, he looked 

not, he spake not. 
But, with a vacant stare, ever gazed at the flickering 

fire-light. 
" Benedicite ! " murmured the priest, in tones of com- 
passion. 605 
More he fain would have said, but his heart was full, 

and his accents 
Faltered and paused on his lips, as the feet of a child 

on a threshold. 



EVANGELINE. 413 

Hushed by the scene he beholds, and the awful pres- 
ence of sorrow. 

Silently, therefore, he laid his hand on the head of the 
maiden. 

Raising his tearful eyes to the silent stars that above 
them 610 

Moved on their way, unperfurbed by the wrongs and 
sorrows of mortals. 

Then sat he down at her side, and they wept together 
in silence. 

Suddenly rose from the south a light, as in autumn 

the blood-red 
Moon climbs the crystal walls of heaven, and o'er the 

horizon 
Titan-like stretches its hundred hands upon mountain 

and meadow, eis 

Seizing the rocks and the rivers, and piling huge 

shadows together. 
Broader and ever broader it gleamed on the roofs of 

the village. 
Gleamed on the sky and the sea, and the ships that 

lay in the roadstead. 
Columns of shining smoke uprose, and flashes of 

flame were 
Thrust through their folds and withdrawn, like the 

quivering hands of a martyr. 620 

615. The Titans were giant deities in Greek mythology who 
attempted to deprive Saturn of tlie sovereignty of heaven, and 
were driven down into Tartarus by Jupiter, the son of Saturn, 
who hurled thunderbolts at them. Briareus, the hundred-handed 
giant, was in mythology of the same parentage as the Titans, 
but was not classed with them. 



414 HENRY WADS WORTH LONGFELLOW. 

Then as the wind seized the gleeds and the burning 
thatch, and, uj^lifting. 

Whirled tliem aloft through the air, at once from a 
hundred house-toj^s 

Started the sheeted smoke with flashes of flame inter- 
mingled. 

These things beheld in dismay the crowd on the 
shore and on shipboard. 

Speechless at first they stood, then cried aloud in their 
anguish, 625 

" We shall behold no more our homes in the village of 
Grand-Pre ! " 

Loud on a sudden the cocks began to crow in the farm- 
yards, 

Thinking the day had dawned ; and anon the lowing 
of cattle 

Came on the evening breeze, by the barking of dogs 
interrupted. 

Then rose a sound of dread, such as startles the sleep- 
ing encampments gso 

Far in the western prairies of forests that skirt the 
Nebraska, 

When the wild horses affrighted sweep by with the 
speed of the whirlwind, 

621. Gleeds. Hot, burning coals ; a Chaucerian word : — 

" And wafres piping hoot out of the gleede." 

Canterbury Tales, 1. 3379. 

The burning of the houses was in accordance with the instruc- 
tions of the Governor to Colonel Winslow, in case he should fail 
in collecting all the inhabitants : " You must proceed by the most 
vigorous measures possible, not only in compelling them to cm- 
bark, but in depriving those who shall escape of all means of 
shelter or support, by burning their houses and by destroying 
everything that may afford them the means of subsistence in the 
country." 



EVANGELINE. 415 

Or the loud bellowing herds of buffaloes rush to the 

river. 
Such was the sound that arose on the night, as the 

herds and the horses 
Broke through their folds and fences, and madly 

rushed o'er the meadows. ess 

Overwhelmed with the sight, yet speechless, the 
priest and the maiden 

Gazed on the scene of terror that reddened and 
widened before them ; 

And as they turned at length to speak to their silent 
companion, 

Lo ! from his seat he had fallen, and stretched abroad 
on the seashore 

Motionless lay his form, from which the soul had de- 
parted. 640 

Slowly the priest uplifted the lifeless head, and the 
maiden 

Knelt at her father's side, and wailed aloud in her 
terror. 

Then in a swoon she sank, and lay with her head on 
his bosom. 

Through the long night she lay in deep, oblivious 
slumber ; 

And when she woke from the trance, she beheld a 
multitude near her. 645 

Faces of friends she beheld, that were mournfully gaz- 
ing upon her. 

Pallid, with tearful eyes, and looks of saddest com- 
passion. 

Still the blaze of the burning village illumined the 
landscape. 



416 HENRY WADSWORTH LONGFELLOW. 

Keddened the sky overhead, and gleamed on the faces 

around her, 
And like the day of doom it seemed to her wavering 

senses. 650 

Then a familiar voice she heard, as it said to the peo- 
ple,— 
" Let us bury him here by the sea. When a happier 

season 
Brings us again to our homes from the unknown land 

of our exile, 
Then shall his sacred dust be piously laid in the 

churchyard." 
Such were the words of the priest. And there in 

haste by the sea-side, 655 

Having the glare of the burning village for funeral 

torches. 
But without bell or book, they buried the farmer of 

Grand-Pre. 
And as the voice of the priest repeated the service of 

sorrow, 
Lo ! with a mournful sound like the voice of a vast 

congregation. 
Solemnly answered the sea, and mingled its roar with 

the dirges. eeo 

'T was the returning tide, that afar from the waste of 

the ocean. 
With the first dawn of the day, came heaving and hur- 
rying landward. 
Then recommenced once more the stir and noise of 

embarking ; 

657. The bell was tolled to mark the passage of the soul into 
the other world ; the book was the service book. The phrase 
" bell, book, or candle " was used in referring to excommunica- 
tion. 



EVANGELINE. 417 

And with the ebb of the tide the ships sailed out of 

the harbor, 
Leaving behind them the dead on the shore, and the 

village in ruins. ees 



PART THE SECOND. 

I. 

Many a weary year had passed since the burning of 

Grand-Pre, 
When on the falling tide the freighted vessels de- 
parted, 
Bearing a nation, with all its household gods, into 

exile, 
Exile without an end, and without an example in 

story. 
Far asunder, on separate coasts, the Acadians 

landed ; 67o 

Scattered were they, like flakes of snow, when the 

wind from the northeast 
Strikes aslant through the fogs that darken the Banks 

of Newfoundland. 
Friendless, homeless, hopeless, they wandered from 

city to city. 
From the cold lakes of the North to sultry Southern 

savannas, — 
From the bleak shores of the sea to the lands where 

the Father of Waters 675 

Seizes the hills in his hands, and drags them down to 

the ocean, 
Deep in their sands to bury the scattered bones of the 

mammoth. 
677. Bones of the mastodon, or mammoth, have been found 



418 HENRY WADS WORTH LONGFELLOW. 

Friends they sought and homes ; and many, despairing, 

heart-broken, 
Asked of the earth but a grave, and no longer a friend 
nor a fireside. 

Written their history stands on tablets of stone in the 
churchyards. 68o 

Long among them was seen a maiden who waited and 
wandered. 

Lowly and meek in spirit, and patiently suffering all 
things. 

Fair was she and young ; but, alas ! before her ex- 
tended. 

Dreary and vast and silent, the desert of life, with its 
pathway 

Marked by the graves of those who had sorrowed and 
suffered before her, ess 

Passions long extinguished, and hopes long dead and 
abandoned. 

As the emigrant's way o'er the Western desert is 
marked by 

Camp-fires long consumed, and bones that bleach in 
the sunshine. 

Something there was in her life incomplete, imperfect, 
unfinished ; 

As if a morning of June, with all its music and sun- 
shine, 690 

Suddenly paused in the sky, and, fading, slowly de- 
scended 

Into the east again, from whence it late had arisen. 

Sometimes she lingered in towns, till, urged by the 
fever within her, 

scattered all over the territory of the United States and Canada, 
but the greatest number have been collected in the Salt Licks of 
Kentucky, and in the States of Ohio, Mississippi, Missouri, and 
Alabama. 



EVANGELINE. 419 

Urged by a restless longing, the hunger and thirst of 
the spirit, 

She would commence again her endless search and en- 
deavor ; 695 

Sometimes in churchyards strayed, and gazed on the 
crosses and tombstones, 

Sat by some nameless grave, and thought that perhaps 
in its bosom 

He was already at rest, and she longed to slumber be- 
side him. 

Sometimes a rumor, a hearsay, an inarticulate whis- 
per, 

Came with its airy hand to point and beckon her for- 
ward. 700 

Sometimes she spake with those who had seen her be- 
loved and known him, 

But it was long ago, in some far-off place or forgot- 
ten. 

" Gabriel Lajeunesse ! " they said ; " Oh, yes ! we have 
seen him. 

He was with Basil the blacksmith, and both have gone 
to the prairies ; 

Coureurs-des-bois are they, and famous hunters and 
trappers." 705 

699. Observe the diminution in this line, by which one is led 
to the airy hand in the next. 

705. The coureurs-des-bois formed a class of men, very early in 
Canadian history, produced by the exigencies of the fur-trade. 
They were French by birth, but by long affiliation with the In- 
dians and adoption of their customs had become half-civilized 
vagrants, whose chief vocation was conducting the canoes of the 
traders along the lakes and rivers of the interior. Bushrangers 
is the English equivalent. They played an important part in the 
Indian wars, but were nearly as lawless as the Indians them- 
selves. The reader will find them frequently referred to in 



420 HENRY WADSWORTH LONGFELLOW. 

" Gabriel Lajeiinesse ! " said others ; " Oh, yes ! we 

have seen him. 
He is a voyageur in the lowlands of Louisiana." 
Then would they say, " Dear child ! why dream and 

wait for him longer ? 
Are there not other youths as fair as Gabriel ? others 
Who have hearts as tender and true, and sj)irits as 

loyal ? 710 

Here is Baptiste Leblanc, the notary's son, who has 

loved thee 
Many a tedious year ; come, give him thy hand and be 

happy ! 
Thou art too fair to be left to braid St. Catherine's 

tresses." 
Then would Evangeline answer, serenely but sadly, 

" I cannot ! 
Whither my heart has gone, there follows my hand, 

and not elsewhere. 715 

For when the heart goes before, like a lamp, and 

illumines the pathway. 
Many things are made clear, that else lie hidden in 

darkness." 
Thereupon the priest, her friend and father confessor. 
Said, with a smile, " O daughter ! thy God thus 

speaketh within thee ! 
Talk not of wasted affection, affection never was 

wasted ; 720 

Parkman's histories, especially in The Conspiracy of Pontiac, 
The Discovery of the Great West, and Frontenac and New France 
under Louis XI V. 

707. A voyageur is a river boatman, and is a term applied 
usually to Canadians. 

713. St. Catherine of Alexandria and St. Catherine of Siena 
were both celebrated for their vows of virginity. Hence the say- 
ing to braid St. Catherine's tresses, of one devoted to a single life. 



EVANGELINE. 421 

If it enrich not the heart of another, its waters, re- 
turning 
Back to their springs, like the rain, shall fill them full 

of refreshment ; 
That which the fountain sends forth returns again to 

the fountain. 
Patience ; accomplish thy labor ; accomplish thy work 

of affection ! 
Sorrow and silence are strong, and patient endurance 

is godlike. 725 

Therefore accomplish thy labor of love, till the heart 

is made godlike. 
Purified, strengthened, perfected, and rendered more 

worthy of heaven ! " 
Cheered by the good man's words, Evangeline labored 

and waited. 
Still in her heart she heard the funeral diro-e of the 

o 

ocean, 

But with its sound there was mingled a voice that 
whispered, " Despair not ! " 730 

Thus did that poor soul wander in want and cheer- 
less discomfort. 

Bleeding, barefooted, over the shards and thorns of 
existence. 

Let me essay, O Muse! to follow the wanderer's foot- 
steps ; — 

Not through each devious path, each changeful year 
of existence ; 

But as a traveller follows a streamlet's course throu2:h 
the valley : 735 

Far from its margin at times, and seeing the gleam of 
its water 

Here and there, in some open space, and at intervals 
only; 



422 HENRY WADSWORTH LONGFELLOW. 

Then drawing nearer its banks, through sylvan glooms 

that conceal it, 
Though he behold it not, he can hear its continuous 

murmur ; 
Happy, at length, if he find a spot where it reaches 

an outlet. 740 

II. 

It was the month of May. Far down the Beautiful 
River, 

Past the Ohio shore and past the mouth of the Wa- 
bash, 

Into the golden stream of the broad and swift Mis- 
sissippi, 

Floated a cumbrous boat, that was rowed by Acadian 
boatmen. 

It was a band of exiles : a raft, as it were, from the 
shipwrecked 74-) 

Nation, scattered along the coast, now floating to- 
gether. 

Bound by the bonds of a common belief and a com- 
mon misfortune ; 

Men and women and children, who, guided by hope 
or by hearsa}^. 

Sought for their kith and their kin among the few- 
acred farmers 

On the Acadian coast, and the prairies of fair Ope- 

loUSaS. ^ 750 

741. The Iroquois gave to this river the name of Ohio, or the 
Beautiful River, and La Salle, who was the first European to 
discover it, preserved the name, so that it was transferred to 
maps very early. 

750. Between the 1st of January and the 13th of May, 1765, 
about six hundred and fifty Aeadians had arrived at New Or- 



EVANGELINE. 423 

With them Evangeline went, and her guide, the 
Father Felician. 

Onward o'er sunken sands, through a wilderness 
sombre with forests. 

Day after day they glided adown the turbulent river ; 

Night after night, by their blazing fires, encamped on 
its borders. 

Now through rushing chutes, among green islands, 
where plumelike 755 

Cotton-trees nodded their shadowy crests, they swept 
with the current. 

Then emerged into broad lagoons, where silvery sand- 
bars 

Lay in the stream, and along the wimpling waves of 
their margin, 

Shining with snow-white plumes, large flocks of pel- 
icans waded. 

Level the landscape grew, and along the shores of the 
river, 76o 

Shaded by china-trees, in the midst of luxuriant gar- 
dens. 

Stood the houses of planters, with negro cabins and 
dove-cots. 

They were approaching the region where reigns per- 
petual summer, 

leans. Louisiana had been ceded by France to Spain in 1762, 
but did not really pass under the control of the Spanish until 
1769. The existence of a French population attracted the wan- 
dering Acadians, and they were sent by the authorities to form 
settlements in Attakapas and Opelousas. They afterward formed 
settlements on both sides of the Mississippi from the German 
Coast up to Baton Rouge, and even as high as Pointe Couple. 
Hence the name of Acadian Coast, which a portion of the banks 
of the river still bears. See Gayarr^'s History of Louisiana : 
The French Doyninion, vol. ii. 



424 HENRY WADSWORTH LONGFELLOW. 

Where through the Golden Coast, and groves of 
orange and citron, 

Sweeps with majestic curve the river away to the east- 
ward. 765 

They, too, swerved from their course ; and, entering 
the Bayou of Plaquemine, 

Soon were lost in a maze of sluggish and devious 
waters. 

Which, like a network of steel, extended in every 
direction. 

Over their heads the towering and tenebrous boughs 
of the cypress 

Met in a dusky arch, and trailing mosses in mid- 
air 770 

Waved like banners that hang on the walls of ancient 
cathedrals. 

Deathlike the silence seemed, and unbroken, save by 
the herons 

Home to their roosts in the cedar-trees returning at 
sunset, 

Or by the owl, as he greeted the moon with demoniac 
laughter. 

Lovely the moonlight was as it glanced and gleamed 
on the water, 775 

Gleamed on the columns of cypress and cedar sustain- 
ing the arches, 

Down through whose broken vaults it fell as through 
chinks in a ruin. 

Dreamlike, and indistinct, and strange were all things 
around them ; 

And o'er their spirits there came a feeling of wonder 
and sadness, — 

Strange forebodings of ill, unseen and that cannot be 
compassed. 78o 



EVANGELINE. 425 

As, at the tramp of a horse's hoof on the turf of the 

prairies, 
Far in advance are closed the leaves of the shrinking 

mimosa. 
So, at the hoof-beats of fate, with sad forebodings of 

evil. 
Shrinks and closes the heart, ere the stroke of doom 

has attained it. 
But Evangeline's heart was sustained by a vision, that 

faintly 785 

Floated before her eyes, and beckoned her on through 

the moonlight. 
It was the thought of her brain that assumed the 

shape of a phantom. 
Through those shadowy aisles had Gabriel wandered 

before her. 
And every stroke of the oar now brought him nearer 

and nearer. 

Then in his place, at the prow of the boat, rose one 

of the oarsmen, 790 

And, as a signal sound, if others like them peradven- 

ture 
Sailed on those gloomy and midnight streams, blew a 

blast on his bugle. 
Wild through the dark colonnades and corridors leafy 

the blast rang. 
Breaking the seal of silence and giving tongues to the 

forest. 
Soundless above them the banners of moss just stirred 

to the music. 795 

Multitudinous echoes awoke and died in the distance, 
Over the watery floor, and beneath the reverberant 

branches ; 



426 HENRY WADSWORTH LONGFELLOW. 

But not a voice replied ; no answer came from the 

darkness ; 
And when the echoes had ceased, like a sense of pain 

was the silence. 
Then Evangeline slept ; but the boatmen rowed 

through the midnight, soo 

Silent at times, then singing familiar Canadian boat- 
songs. 
Such as they sang of old on their own Acadian rivers, 
While through the night were heard the mysterious 

sounds of the desert, 
Far off, — indistinct, — as of wave or wind in the 

forest. 
Mixed with the whoop of the crane and the roar of 

the grim alligator. sos 

Thus ere another noon they emerged from the 
shades ; and before them 

Lay, in the golden sun, the lakes of the Atchafalaya. 

Water-lilies in myriads rocked on the slight undula- 
tions 

Made by the passing oars, and, resplendent in beauty, 
the lotus 

Lifted her golden crown above the heads of the boat- 
men. 810 

Faint was the air with the odorous breath of magno- 
lia blossoms. 

And with the heat of noon ; and numberless sylvan 
islands. 

Fragrant and thicldy embowered with blossoming 
hedges of roses. 

Near to whose shores they glided along, invited to 
slumber. 

Soon by the fairest of these their weary oars were sus- 
pended. 815 



EVANGELINE. 427 

Under the boughs of Wachita willows, that grew by 

the margin, 
Safely their boat was moored ; and scattered about on 

the greensward, 
Tired with their midnight toil, the weary travellers 

slumbered. 
Over them vast and high extended the cope of a 

cedar. 
Swinging from its great arms, the trumpet-flower and 



the grapevine 



820 



Hung their ladder of ropes aloft like the ladder of 
Jacob, 

On whose pendulous stairs the angels ascending, de- 
scending, 

Were the swift humming-birds, that flitted from blos- 
som to blossom. 

Such was the vision Evangeline saw as she slumbered 
beneath it. 

Filled was her heart with love, and the dawn of an 
opening heaven 825 

Lighted her soul in sleep with the glory of regions 
celestial. 

Nearer, ever nearer, among the numberless islands, 
Darted a light, swift boat, that sped away o'er the 

water. 
Urged on its course by the sinewy arms of hunters 

and trappers. 
Northward its prow was turned, to the land of the 

bison and beaver. m 

At the helm sat a youth, with countenance thoughtful 

and careworn. 
Dark and neglected locks overshadowed his brow, and 

a sadness 



428 HENRY WADSWORTH LONGFELLOW. 

Somewhat beyond his years on his face was legibly 
written. 

Gabriel was it, who, weary with waiting, unhappy and 
restless, 

Sought in the Western wilds oblivion of self and of 
sorrow. 835 

Swiftly they glided along, close under the lee of the 
island. 

But by the opposite bank, and behind a screen of pal- 
mettos ; 

So that they saw not the boat, where it lay concealed 
in the willows ; 

All undisturbed by the dash of their oars, and unseen, 
were the sleepers ; 

Angel of God was there none to awaken the slumber- 
ing maiden. 84o 

Swiftly they glided away, like the shade of a cloud on 
the prairie. 

After the sound of their oars on the tholes had died 
in the distance. 

As from a magic trance the sleepers awoke, and the 
maiden 

Said with a sigh to the friendly priest, "O Father 
Felician ! 

Something says in my heart that near me Gabriel 
wanders. 845 

Is it a foolish dream, an idle and vague superstition ? 

Or has an angel passed, and revealed the truth to my 
spirit ? " 

Then, with a blush, she added, "Alas for my credu- 
lous fancy ! 

Unto ears like thine such words as these have no 
meaning." 

But made answer the reverend man, and he smiled as 
he answered, — 85o 



EVANGELINE. 429 

" Daughter, thy words are not idle ; nor are they to 

me without meaning, 
Feeling is deep and still ; and the word that floats on 

the surface 
Is as the tossing buoy, that betrays where the anchor 

is hidden. 
Therefore trust to thy heart, and to what the world 

calls illusions. 
Gabriel truly is near thee ; for not far away to the 

southward, 855 

On the banks of the Teche, are the towns of St. Maur 

and St. Martin. 
There the long-wandering bride shall be given again 

to her bridegroom. 
There the long-absent pastor regain his flock and his 

sheepfold. 
Beautiful is the land, with its prairies and forests of 

fruit-trees ; 
Under the feet a garden of flowers, and the bluest of 

heavens seo 

Bending above, and resting its dome on the walls of 

the forest. 
They who dwell there have named it the Eden of 

Louisiana." 

With these words of cheer they arose and continued 
their journey. 

Softly the evening came. The sun from the western 
horizon 

Like a magician extended his golden wand o'er the 
landscape ; 865 

Twinkling vapors arose ; and sky and water and forest 

Seemed all on fire at the touch, and melted and min- 
gled together. 



430 HENRY WADS WORTH LONGFELLOW. 

Hanging between two skies, a cloud with edges of 
silver, 

Floated the boat, with its dripping oars, on the mo- 
tionless water. 

Filled was Evangeline's heart with inexpressible sweet- 
ness. 870 

Touched by the magic spell, the sacred fountains of 
feeling 

Glowed with the light of love, as the skies and waters 
around her. 

Then from a neighboring thicket the mocking-bird, 
wildest of singers. 

Swinging aloft on a willow spray that hung o'er the 
water. 

Shook from his little throat such floods of delirious 

music, 875 

That the whole air and the woods and tlie waves 

seemed silent to listen. 
Plaintive at first were the tones and sad ; then soaring 

to madness 
Seemed they to follow or guide the revel of frenzied 

Bacchantes. 
Single notes were then heard, in sorrowful, low lam- 
entation ; 
Till, having gathered them all, he flung them abroad 

in derision, sso 

As when, after a storm, a gust of wind through the 

tree-tops 
Shakes down the rattling rain in a crystal shower on 

the branches. 

878. The Bacchantes were worshippers of the god Bacchus, 
who in Greek mythology presided over the vine and its fruits. 
They gave themselves up to all manner of excess, and their 
songs and dances were to wild, intoxicating measures. 



EVANGELINE. 431 

With such a prelude as this, and hearts that throbbed 
with emotion, 

Slowly they entered the Teche, where it flows through 
the green Opelousas, 

And, through the amber air, above the crest of the 
woodland, 885 

Saw the column of smoke that arose from a neighbor- 
ing dwelling ; — 

Sounds of a horn they heard, and the distant lowing 
of cattle. 

III. 

Near to the bank of the river, o'ershadowed by oaks 
from whose branches 

Garlands of Spanish moss and of mystic mistletoe 
flaunted. 

Such as the Druids cut down with golden hatchets at 
Yule-tide, 89o 

Stood, secluded and still, the house of the herdsman. 
A garden 

Girded it round about with a belt of luxuriant blos- 
soms. 

Filling the air with fragrance. The house itself was 
of timbers 

Hewn from the cypress-tree, and carefully fitted to- 
gether. 

Large and low was the roof ; and on slender columns 
supported, 895 

Rose-wreathed, vine-encircled, a broad and spacious 
veranda. 

Haunt of the humming-bird and the bee, extended 
around it. 

At each end of the house, amid the flowers of the 
garden. 



432 HENRY WADSWORTH LONGFELLOW, 

Stationed the dove-cots were, as love's perpetual sym- 
bol, 

Scenes of endless wooing, and endless contentions of 
rivals. 900 

Silence reigned o'er the place. The line of shadow 
and sunshine 

Ran near the tops of the trees ; but the house itself 
was in shadow. 

And from its chimney-top, ascending and slowly ex- 
panding 

Into the evening air, a thin blue column of smoke 
rose. 

In the rear of the house, from the garden gate, ran a 
pathway m 

Through the great groves of oak to the skirts of the 
limitless prairie, 

Into whose sea of flowers the sun was slowly descend- 
ing- 
Full in his track of light, like ships with shadowy 
canvas 

Hanging loose from their spars in a motionless calm 
in the tropics, 

Stood a cluster of trees, with tangled cordage of 
grapevines. 910 

Just where the woodlands met the flowery surf of 

the prairie. 
Mounted upon his horse, with Spanish saddle and 

stirrups. 
Sat a herdsman, arrayed in gaiters and doublet of 

deerskin. 
Broad and brown was the face that from under the 

Spanish sombrero 
Gazed on the peaceful scene, with the lordly look of 

its master. 915 



EVANGELINE. 433 

Roirnd about liiin were numberless herds of kine that 
were grazing * 

Quietly in the meadows, and breathing the vapory 
freshness 

That uprose from the river, and spread itself over the 
landscape. 

Slowly lifting the horn that hung at his side, and ex- 
panding 

Fully his broad, deep chest, he blew a blast, that re- 
sounded 920 

Wildly and sweet and far, through the still damp air 
of the evening. 

Suddenly out of the grass the long white horns of the 
cattle 

Rose like flakes of foam on the adverse currents of 
ocean. 

Silent a moment they gazed, then bellowing rushed 
o'er the prairie. 

And the whole mass became a cloud, a shade in the 
distance. 925 

Then, as the herdsman turned to the house, through 
the gate of the garden 

Saw he the forms of the priest and the maiden ad- 
vancing to meet him. 

Suddenly down from his horse he sprang in amaze- 
ment, and forward 

Pushed with extended arms and exclamations of won- 
der; 

When they beheld his face, they recognized Basil the 
blacksmith. 930 

Hearty his welcome was, as he led his guests to the 
garden. 

There in an arbor of roses with endless question and 
answer 



434 HENRY WADSWORTH LONGFELLOW. 

Gave they vent to their hearts, and renewed their 

friendly embraces, 
Laughing and weeping by turns, or sitting silent and 

thoughtful. 
Thoughtful, for Gabriel came not; and now dark 

doubts and misgivings 935 

Stole o'er the maiden's heart ; and Basil, somewhat 

embarrassed, 
Broke the silence and said, "If you came by the 

Atchafalaya, 
How have you nowhere encountered my Gabriel's 

boat on the bayous ? " 
Over Evangeline's face at the words of Basil a shade 

passed. 
Tears came into her eyes, and she said, with a trem- 
ulous accent, 940 
" Gone ? is Gabriel gone ? " and, concealing her face 

on his shoulder. 
All her o'erburdened heart gave way, and she wept 

and lamented. 
Then the good Basil said, — and his voice grew blithe 

as he said it, — 
" Be of good cheer, my child ; it is only to-day he 

departed. 
Foolish boy ! he has left me alone with my herds and 

my horses. 945 

Moody and restless growH, and tried and troubled, his 

spirit 
Could no longer endure the calm of this quiet exis- 
tence. 
Thinking ever of thee, uncertain and sorrowful ever, 
Ever silent, or speaking only of thee and his troubles, 
He at length had become so tedious to men and to 

maidens, 950 



EVANGELINE. 435 

Tedious even to me, that at length I bethought me, and 

sent him 
Unto the town of Adayes to trade for mules with the 

Spaniards. 
Thence he will follow the Indian trails to the Ozark 

Mountains, 
Hunting for furs in the forests, on rivers trapping the 

beaver. 
Therefore be of good cheer ; we will follow the fugi- 
tive lover ; 955 
He is not far on his way, and the Fates and the 

streams are against him. 
Up and away to-morrow, and through the red dew of 

the morning. 
We will follow him fast, and bring him back to his 

prison." 

Then glad voices were heard, and up from the 

banks of the river, 
Borne aloft on his comrades' arms, came Michael the 

fiddler. seo 

Long under Basil's roof had he lived, like a god on 

Olympus, 
Having no other care than dispensing music to mor- 
tals. 
Far renowned was he for his silver locks and his 

fiddle. 
" Long live Michael," they cried, " our brave Acadian 

minstrel ! " 
As they bore him aloft in triumphal procession ; and 

straightway ^es 

Father Felician advanced with Evangeline, greeting 

the old man 
Kindly and oft, and recalling the past, while Basil, 

enraptured. 



436 HENRY WADSWORTH LONGFELLOW. 

Hailed with hilarious joy his old companions and gos- 
sips, 

Laughing loud and long, and embracing mothers and 
daughters. 

Much they marvelled to see the wealth of the ci-devant 
blacksmith, . 97i 

All his domains and his herds, and his patriarchal 
demeanor ; 

Much they marvelled to hear his tales of the soil and 
the climate. 

And of the prairies, whose numberless herds were his 
who would take them ; 

Each one thought in his heart, that he, too, would go 
and do likewise. 

Thus they ascended the steps, and, crossing the breezy 
veranda, 975 

Entered the hall of the house, where already the sup- 
per of Basil 

Waited his late return ; and they rested and feasted 
together. 

Over the joyous feast the sudden darkness de- 
scended. 

All was silent without, and, illuming the landscape 
with silver, 

Fair rose the dewy moon and the myriad stars ; but 
within doors, 980 

Brighter than these, shone the faces of friends in the 
glimmering lamplight. 

Then from his station aloft, at the head of the table, 
the herdsman 

Poured forth his heart and his wine together in endless 
profusion. 

Lighting his pipe, that was filled with sweet Natchi- 
toches tobacco, 



EVANGELINE. 437 

Thus he spake to his guests, who listened, and smiled 

as they listened : — 985 

" Welcome once more, my friends, who long have been 

friendless and homeless. 
Welcome once more to a home, that is better per- 
chance than the old one ! 
Here no hungry winter congeals our blood like the 

rivers ; 
Here no stony ground provokes the wrath of the 

farmer ; 
Smoothly the ploughshare runs through the soil, as a 

keel through the water. 990 

All the year round the orange-groves are in blossom ; 

and grass grows 
More in a single night than a whole Canadian summer. 
Here, too, numberless herds run wild and unclaimed 

in the prairies ; 
Here, too, lands may be had for the asking, and 

forests of timber 
With a few blows of the axe are hewn and framed 

into houses. 995 

After your houses are built, and your fields are yellow 

with harvests. 
No King George of England shall drive you away from 

your homesteads. 
Burning your dwellings and barns, and stealing your 

farms and your cattle." 
Speaking these words, he blew a wrathful cloud from 

his nostrils. 
While his huge, brown hand came thundering down 

on the table, 1000 

So that the guests all started; and Father Felician, 

astounded, 
Suddenly paused, with a pinch of snuff half-way to 

his nostrils. 



438 HENRY WADSWORTH LONGFELLOW. 

But the brave Basil resumed, and his words were 
milder and gayer : — 

" Only beware of the fever, my friends, beware of the 
fever ! 

For it is not like that of our cold Acadian climate, 1005 

Cured by wearing a spider hung round one's neck in a 
nutshell ! " 

Then there were voices heard at the door, and foot- 
steps approaching 

Sounded upon the stairs and the floor of the breezy 
veranda. 

It was the neighboring Creoles and small Acadian 
planters. 

Who had been summoned all to the house of Basil the 
herdsman. 1010 

Merry the meeting was of ancient comrades and 
neighbors : 

Friend clasped friend in his arms ; and they who 
before were as strangers, 

Meeting in exile, became straightway as friends to each 
other, 

Drawn by the gentle bond of a common country 
together. 

But in the neighboring hall a strain of music, pro- 
ceeding 1015 

From the accordant strings of Michael's melodious 
fiddle. 

Broke np all further speech. Away, like children 
delighted. 

All things forgotten beside, they gave themselves to 
the maddening 

Whirl of the dizzy dance, as it swept and swayed to 
the music. 

Dreamlike, with beaming eyes and the rush of flutter- 
ing garments. 1020 



EVANGELINE. 439 

Meanwhile, apart, at the head of the hall, the priest 

and the herdsman 
Sat, conversing together of past and present and 

future ; 
While Evangeline stood like one entranced, for within 

her 
Olden memories rose, and loud in the midst of the 

music 
Heard she the sound of the sea, and an irrepres- 
sible sadness 1025 
Came o'er her heart, and unseen she stole forth into 

the garden. 
Beautiful was the night. Behind the black wall of 

the forest, 
Tipping its summit with silver, arose the moon. On 

the river 
Fell here and there through the branches a tremulous 

gleam of the moonlight. 
Like the sweet thoughts of love on a darkened and 

devious spirit. 1030 

Nearer and round about her, the manifold flowers 

of the garden 
Poured out their souls in odors, that were their prayers 

and confessions 
Unto the night, as it went its way, like a silent 

Carthusian. 

1033. The Carthusians are a monastic order founded in the 
twelfth century, perhaps the most severe in its rules of all reli- 
gious societies. Almost perpetual silence is one of the vows; the 
monks can talk together but once a week ; the labor required of 
them is unremitting and the discipline exceedingly rigid. The 
first monastery was established at Chartreux near Grenoble in 
France, and the Latinized form of the name has given us the 
word Carthusian. 



440 HENRY WADSWORTH LONGFELLOW. 

Fuller of fragrance than they, and as heavy with 
shadows and night-dews, 

Hung the heart of the maiden. The calm and the 
magical moonlight 1035 

Seemed to inundate her soul with indefinable long- 
ings, 

As, through the garden gate, and beneath the shade 
of the oak-trees. 

Passed she along the path to the edge of the measure- 
less prairie. 

Silent it lay, with a silvery haze upon it, and fire-flies 

Gleaming and floating away in mingled and infinite 
numbers. io4o 

Over her head the stars, the thoughts of God in the 
heavens. 

Shone on the eyes of man, who had ceased to marvel 
and worship. 

Save when a blazing comet was seen on the walls of 
that temple, 

As if a hand had appeared and written upon them, 
" Upharsin." 

And the soul of the maiden, between the stars and 
the fire-flies, 1045 

Wandered alone, and she cried, "O Gabriel! O my 
beloved ! 

Art thou so near unto me, and yet I cannot behold 
thee? 

Art thou so near unto me, and yet thy voice does not 
reach me ? 

Ah ! how often thy feet have trod this path to the 
prairie ! 

Ah ! how often thine eyes have looked on the wood- 
lands around me ! lo^n 

Ah ! how often beneath this oak, returning from labor. 



EVANGELINE. 441 

Thou hast lain down to rest, and to dream of me in 

thy slumbers ! 
When shall these eyes behold, these arms be folded 

about thee ? " 
Loud and sudden and near the note of a whippoor- 

will sounded 
Like a flute in the woods ; and anon, through the 

neighboring thickets, 1055 

Farther and farther away it floated and dropped into 

silence. 
" Patience ! " whispered the oaks from oracular cav- 
erns of darkness ; 
And, from the moonlit meadow, a sigh responded, 

" To-morrow ! " 

Bright rose the sun next day ; and all the flowers 
of the garden 

Bathed his shining feet with their tears, and anointed 
his tresses loeo 

With the delicious balm that they bore in their vases 
of crystal. 

"Farewell!" said the priest, as he stood at the 
shadowy threshold ; 

" See that you bring us the Prodigal Son from his 
fasting and famine, 

And, too, the Foolish Virgin, who slept when the 
bridegroom was coming." 

*' Farewell! " answered the maiden, and, smiling, with 
Basil descended io65 

Down to the river's brink, where the boatmen already 
were waiting. 

Thus beginning their journey with morning, and sun- 
shine, and gladness, 

Swiftly they followed the flight of him who was speed- 
ing before them, 



442 HENRY WADSWORTH LONGFELLOW. 

Blown by the blast of fate like a dead leaf over the 

desert. 
Not that day, nor the next, nor yet the day that suc- 
ceeded, 1070 
Found they trace of his course, in lake or forest or 

river. 
Nor, after many days, had they found him ; but vague 

and uncertain 
Rumors alone were their guides through a wild and 

desolate country ; 
Till, at the little inn of the Spanish town of Adayes, 
Weary and worn, they alighted, and learned from the 

garrulous landlord 1075 

That on the day before, with horses and guides and 

companions, 
Gabriel left the village, and took the road of the 

prairies. 

IV. 

Far in the West there lies a desert land, where the 
. mountains 
Lift, through perpetual snows, their lofty and lumi- 
nous summits. 
Down from their jagged, deep ravines, where the 

gorge, like a gateway, loso 

Opens a passage rude to the wheels of the emigrant's 

wagon. 
Westward the Oregon flows and the Walleway and 

Owyhee. 
Eastward, with devious course, among the Wind-river 

Mountains, 
Through the Sweet-water Valley precipitate leaps the 

Nebraska ; 
And to the south, from Fontaine-qui-bout and the 

Spanish sierras, 1085 



EVANGELINE. 443 

Fretted with sands and rocks, and swept by the wind 
of the desert, 

Numberless torrents, with ceaseless sound, descend to 
the ocean. 

Like the great chords of a harp, in loud and solemn 
vibrations. 

Spreading between these streams are the wondrous, 
beautiful prairies, 

Billowy bays of grass ever rolling in shadow and sun- 
shine, 1090 

Bright with luxuriant clusters of roses and purple 
amorphas. 

Over them wandered the buffalo herds, and the elk 
and the roebuck ; 

Over them wandered the wolves, and herds of rider- 
less horses ; 

Fires that blast and blight, and winds that are weary 
with travel ; 

Over them wander the scattered tribes of Ishmael's 
children, > 1095 

Staining the desert with blood ; and above their terri- 
ble war-trails 

Circles and sails aloft, on pinions majestic, the vul- 
ture, 

Like the implacable soul of a chieftain slaughtered 
in battle, 

By invisible stairs ascending and scaling the heav- 
ens. 

Here and there rise smokes from the camps of these 
savage marauders ; 1100 

Here and there rise groves from the margins of swift- 
running rivers ; 

And the gTim, taciturn bear, the anchorite monk of 
the desert, 



444 HENRY WADS WORTH LONGFELLOW. 

Climbs down their dark ravines to dig for roots by 

the brook-side, 
And over all is the sky, the clear and crystalline 

heaven, 
Like the protecting hand of God inverted above 

them. no5 

Into this wonderful land, at the base of the Ozark 

Mountains, 
Gabriel far had entered, with hunters and trappers 

behind him. 
Day after day, with their Indian guides, the maiden 

and Basil 
Followed his flying steps, and thought each day to 

o'ertake him. 
Sometimes they saw, or thought they saw, the smoke 

of his camj)-fire mo 

Rise in the morning air from the distant plain ; but 

at nightfall. 
When they had reached the place, they found only 

embers and ashes. 
And, though their hearts were sad at times and their 

bodies were weary, 
Hope still guided them on, as the magic Fata Morgana 
Showed them her lakes of light, that retreated and 

vanished before them. ms 

1114. The Italian name for a meteoric phenomenon nearly 
allied to a mirage, witnessed in the Straits of Messina, and less 
frequently elsewhere, and consisting in the appearance in the 
air over the sea of the objects which are upon the neighboring 
coasts. In the southwest of our own country, the mirage is very 
common, of lakes which stretch before the tired traveller, and 
the deception is so great that parties have sometimes beckoned 
to other travellers, who seemed to be wading knee-deep, to come 
over to them where dry land was. 



EVANGELINE. 445 

Once, as they sat by their evening fire, there silently 

entered 
Into the little camp an Indian woman, whose features 
Wore deep traces of sorrow, and patience as great as 

her sorrow. 
She was a Shawnee woman returning home to her 

people. 
From the far-off hunting-grounds of the cruel Ca- 

manches, n2o 

Where her Canadian husband, a coureur-des-bois, 

had been murdered. 
Touched were their hearts at her story, and warmest 

and friendliest welcome 
Gave they, with words of cheer, and she sat and 

feasted among them 
On the buffalo-meat and the venison cooked on the 

embers. 
But when their meal was done, and Basil and all his 

companions, 1125 

Worn with the long day's march and the chase of the 

deer and the bison, 
Stretched themselves on the ground, and slept where 

the quivering fire-light 
Flashed on their swarthy cheeks, and their forms 

wrapped up in their blankets. 
Then at the door of Evangeline's tent she sat and re- 
peated 
Slowly, with soft, low voice, and the charm of her In- 
dian accent, 1130 
All the tale of her love, with its pleasures, and pains, 

and reverses. 
Much Evangeline wept at the tale, and to know that 

another 
Hapless heart like her own had loved and had been 

disappointed. 



446 HENRY WADSWORTH LONGFELLOW. 

Moved to the depths of her soul by pity and woman's 

compassion, 
Yet in her sorrow pleased that one who had suffered 

was near her, n^s 

She in turn related her love and all its disasters. 
Mute with wonder the Shawnee sat, and when she had 

ended 
Still was mute ; but at length, as if a mysterious hor- 
ror 
Passed through her brain, she spake, and repeated the 

tale of the Mowis ; 
Mowis, the bridegroom of snow, who won and wedded 

a maiden, iwo 

But, when the morning came, arose and passed from 

the wigwam, 
Fading and melting away and dissolving into the sun- 
shine. 
Till she beheld him no more, though she followed far 

into the forest. 
Then, in those sweet, low tones, that seemed like a 

weird incantation. 
Told she the tale of the fair Lilinau, who was wooed 

by a phantom, iws 

That, through the pines o'er her father's lodge, in the 

hush of the twilight, 
Breathed like the evening wind, and whispered love to 

the maiden, 
Till she followed his green and waving plume through 

the forest. 
And nevermore returned, nor was seen again by her 

people. 

1145. The story of Lilinau and other Indian legends will be 
found in H. R. Schoolcraft's Algic Researches. 



EVANGELINE. 447 

Silent with wonder and strange surprise, Evangeline 
listened 1150 

To the soft flow of her magical words, till the region 
around her 

Seemed like enchanted ground, and her swarthy guest 
the enchantress. 

Slowly over the tops of the Ozark Mountains the 
moon rose, 

Lighting the little tent, and with a mysterious splen- 
dor 

Touching the sombre leaves, and embracing and filling 
the woodland. nsi 

With a delicious sound the brook rushed by, and the 
branches 

Swayed and sighed overhead in scarcely audible whis- 
pers. 

Filled with the thoughts of love was Evangeline's 
heart, but a secret. 

Subtile sense crept in of pain and indefinite terror. 

As the cold, poisonous snake creeps into the nest of 
the swallow. neo 

It was no earthly fear. A breath from the region of 
spirits 

Seemed to float in the air of night ; and she felt for a 
moment 

That, like the Indian maid, she, too, was pursuing a 
phantom. 

With this thought she slept, and the fear and the 
phantom had vanished. 

Early upon the morrow the march was resumed, and 
the Shawnee iies 

Said, as they journeyed along, — " On the western 
slope of these mountains 



448 HENRY WADSWORTH LONGFELLOW. 

Dwells in his little village the Black Robe chief of 

the Mission. 
Much he teaches the people, and tells them of Mary 

and Jesus ; 
Loud laugh their hearts with joy, and weep with pain, 

as they hear him." 
Then, with a sudden and secret emotion, Evangeline 

answered, hto 

" Let us go to the Mission, for there good tidings 

await us ! " 
Thither they turned their steeds ; and behind a spur 

of the mountains, 
Just as the sun went down, they heard a murmur of 

voices, 
And in a meadow green and broad, by the bank of a 

river. 
Saw the tents of the Christians, the tents of the Jesuit 

Mission. n7r) 

Under a towering oak, that stood in the midst of the 

village. 
Knelt the Black Robe chief with his children. A 

crucifix fastened 
High on the trunk of the tree, and overshadowed by 

grapevines, 
Looked with its agonized face on the multitude kneel- 
ing beneath it. 
This was their rural chapel. Aloft, through the intri- 
cate arches iiso 
Of its aerial roof, arose the chant of their vespers, 
Mingling its notes with the soft susurrus and sighs of 

the branches. 
Silent, with heads uncovered, the travellers, nearer 

approaching. 
Knelt on the swarded floor, and joined in the evening 

devotions. 



EVANGELINE. 449 

But when the service was done, and the benediction 
had fallen uss 

Forth from the hands of the priest, like seed from the 
hands of the sower. 

Slowly the reverend man advanced to the strangers, 
and bade them 

Welcome ; and when they replied, he smiled with be- 
nignant expression. 

Hearing the homelike sounds of his mother-tongue in 
the forest, 

And, with words of kindness, conducted them into his 
wigwam. ii9o 

There upon mats and skins they reposed, and on cakes 
of the maize-ear 

Feasted, and slaked their thirst from the water-gourd 
of the teacher. 

Soon was their story told ; and the priest with solem- 
nity answered : — 

" Not six suns have risen and set since Gabriel, seated 

On this mat by my side, where now the maiden re- 
poses, 1195 

Told me this same sad tale ; then arose and continued 
his journey ! " 

Soft was the voice of the priest, and he spake with an 
accent of kindness ; 

But on Evangeline's heart fell his words as in winter 
the snow-flakes 

Fall into some lone nest from which the birds have 
departed. 

" Far to the north he has gone," continued the priest ; 
" but in autumn, 1200 

When the chase is done, will return again to the Mis- 
sion." 

Then Evangeline said, and her voice was meek and 
submissive, 



450 HENRY WADSWORTH LONGFELLOW. 

" Let me remain with thee, for my soul is sad and af- 
flicted." 

So seemed it wise and well unto all ; and betimes on 
the morrow, 

Mounting his Mexican steed, with his Indian guides 
and companions, 1205 

Homeward Basil returned, and Evangeline stayed at 
the Mission. 

Slowly, slowly, slowly the days succeeded each 

other, — 
Days and weeks and months ; and the fields of maize 

that were springing 
Green from the ground when a stranger she came, 

now waving about her. 
Lifted their slender shafts, with leaves interlacing, 

and forming 1210 

Cloisters for mendicant crows and granaries pillaged 

by squirrels. 
Then in the golden weather the maize was husked, 

and the maidens 
Blushed at each blood-red ear, for that betokened a 

lover, 
But at. the crooked laughed, and called it a thief in 

the corn-field. 
Even the blood-red ear to Evangeline brought not her 

lover. 1215 

" Patience ! " the priest would say ; " have faith, and 

thy prayer will be answered ! 
Look at this vigorous plant that lifts its head from 

the meadow, 
See how its leaves are turned to the north, as true as 

the magnet ; 



EVANGELINE. 451 

It is the compass-flower, that the finger of God has 

planted 
Here in the houseless wild, to direct the traveller's 

journey 1220 

Over the sea-like, pathless, limitless waste of the 

desert. 
Such in the soul of man is faith. The blossoms of 

passion, 
Gay and luxuriant flowers, are brighter and fuller of 

fragrance, 
But they beguile us, and lead us astray, and their 

odor is deadly. 
Only this humble plant can guide us here, and here- 
after 1225 
Crown us with asphodel flowers, that are wet with the 

dews of nepenthe." 

So came the autumn, and passed, and the winter — 

yet Gabriel came not ; 
Blossomed the opening spring, and the notes of the 

robin and bluebird 
Sounded sweet upon wold and in wood, yet Gabriel 

came not. 
But on the breath of the summer winds a rumor was 

wafted 1230 

1219. Silphium laciniatum or compass-plant is found on the 
prairies of Michigan and Wisconsin and to the south and west, 
and is said to present the edges of the lower leaves due north 
and south. 

1226. In early Greek poetry the asphodel meadows were 
haunted by the shades of heroes. See Homer's Odyssey, xxiv. 
13, where Pope translates : — 

" In ever flowering meads of Asphodel." 
The asphodel is of the lily family, and is known also by the 
name king's spear. 



452 HENRY WADSWORTH LONGFELLOW. 

Sweeter than song of bird, or hue or odor of blos- 
som. 

Far to the north and east, it said, in the Michigan 
forests, 

Gabriel had his lodge by the banks of the Saginaw 
Kiver. 

And, with returning guides, that sought the lakes of 
St. Lawrence, 

Saying a sad farewell, Evangeline went from the Mis- 
sion. 1235 

When over weary ways, by long and perilous 
marches, 

She had attained at length the depths of the Michigan 
forests. 

Found she the hunter's lodge deserted and fallen to 
ruin ! 

Thus did the long sad years glide on, and in sea- 
sons and places 
Divers and distant far was seen the wandering 

maiden ; — 1240 

Now in the Tents of Grace of the meek Moravian 

Missions, 
Now in the noisy camps and the battle-fields of the 

army, 
Now in secluded hamlets, in towns and populous 

cities. 
Like a phantom she came, and passed away unremem- 

bered. 
Fair was she and young, when in hope began the long 

journey ; 1245 

Faded was she and old, when in disappointment it 

ended. 
1241. A rendering of the Moravian Gnadenhiitten. 



EVANGELINE. 453 

Each succeediDg year stole something away from her 
beauty, 

Leaving behind it, broader and deeper, the gloom and 
the shadow. 

Then there appeared and spread faint streaks of gray 
o'er her forehead, 

Dawn of another life, that broke o'er her earthly hor- 
izon, 1250 

As in the eastern sky the first faint streaks of the 
morning. 

V. 

In that delightful land which is washed by the Dela- 
ware's waters. 

Guarding in sylvan shades the name of Penn the 
apostle, 

Stands on the banks of its beautiful stream the city 
he founded. 

There all the air is balm, and the peach is the emblem 
of beauty, 1255 

And the streets still reecho the names of the trees of 
the forest. 

As if they fain would appease the Dryads whose 
haunts they molested. 

There from the troubled sea had Evangeline landed, 
an exile. 

Finding among the children of Penn a home and a 
country. 

There old Rene Leblanc had died; and when he 
departed, 1260 

Saw at his side only one of all his hundred descend- 
ants. 

1256. The streets of Philadelphia, as is well known, are many 
of them, especially those running east and west, named for trees, 
as Chestnut, Walnut, Locust, Spruce, Pine, etc. 



454 HENRY WADSWORTH LONGFELLOW. 

Something at least there was in the friendly streets of 
the city, 

Something that spake to her heart, and made her no 
longer a stranger ; 

And her ear was pleased with the Thee and Thou of 
the Quakers, 

For it recalled the past, the old Acadian country, 1265 

Where all men were equal, and all were brothers and 
sisters. 

So, when the fruitless search, the disappointed en- 
deavor, 

Ended, to recommence no more upon earth, uncom- 
plaining. 

Thither, as leaves to the light, were turned her 
thoughts and her footsteps. 

As from a mountain's top the rainy mists of the morn- 
ing 1270 

Roll away, and afar we behold the landscape below us. 
Sun-illumined, with shining rivers and cities and ham- 
lets, 
So fell the mists from her mind, and she saw the 

world far below her, 
Dark no longer, but all illumined with love ; and the 

pathway 
Which she had climbed so far, lying smooth and fair 

in the distance. 1275 

Gabriel was not forgotten. Within her heart was his 

image. 
Clothed in the beauty of love and youth, as last she 

beheld him, 
Only more beautiful made by his deathlike silence and 

absence. 
Into her thoughts of him time entered not, for it was 

not. 



EVANGELINE. 455 

Over him years had no power ; he was not changed, 

but transfigured ; 1280 

He had become to her heart as one who is dead, and 

not absent ; 
Patience and abnegation of self, and devotion to others. 
This was the lesson a life of trial and sorrow had 

taught her. 
So was her love diffused, but, like to some odorous 

spices, 
Suffered no waste nor loss, though filling the air with 

aroma. 1285 

Other hope had she none, nor wish in life, but to 
Meekly follow, with reverent steps, the sacred feet of 

her Saviour. 
Thus many years she lived as a Sister of Mercy ; fre- 
quenting 
Lonely and wretched roofs in the crowded lanes of 

the city. 
Where distress and want concealed themselves from 

the sunlight, 1290 

Where disease and sorrow in garrets languished neg- 
lected. 
Night after night when the world was asleep, as the 

watchman repeated 
Loud, through the dusty streets, that all was well in 

the city. 
High at some lonely window he saw the light of her 

taper. 
Day after day, in the gray of the dawn, as slow 

through the suburbs 1295 

Plodded the German farmer, with flowers and fruits 

for the market, 
Met he that meek, pale face, returning home from its 

watchings. 



456 HENRY WADSWORTH LONGFELLOW. 

Then it came to pass that a pestilence fell on the 
city, 

Presaged by wondrous signs, and mostly by flocks of 
wild pigeons, 

Darkening the sun in their flight, with naught in their 
craws but an acorn. 1300 

And, as the tides of the sea arise in the month of Sep- 
tember, 

Flooding some silver stream, till it spreads to a lake 
in the meadow. 

So death flooded life, and, o'erflowing its natural mar- 
gin, 

Spread to a brackish lake the silver stream of ex- 
istence. 

Wealth had no power to bribe, nor beauty to charm, 
the oppressor ; 1305 

But all perished alike beneath the scourge of his 
anger ; — 

Only, alas ! the poor, who had neither friends nor at- 
tendants, 

Crept away to die in the almshouse, home of the 
homeless. 

Then in the suburbs it stood, in the midst of meadows 
and woodlands ; — 

1298. The year 1793 was long remembered as the year when 
yellow fever was a terrible pestilence in Philadelphia. Charles 
Brockden Brown made his novel of A rtliur Mervyn turn largely 
upon the incidents of the plague, which drove Brown away from 
home for a time. 

1308. Philadelphians have identified the old Friends' alms- 
house on Walnut Street, now no longer standing, as that in which 
Evangeline ministered to Gabriel, and so real was the story that 
some even ventured to point out the graves of the two lovers. 
See Westcott's The Historic Mansions of Philadelphia, pp. 101, 
102. 



EVANGELINE. 457 

Now the city surrounds it ; but still, with its gateway 
and wicket isio 

Meek, in the midst of splendor, its humble walls seem 
to echo 

Softly the words of the Lord : — " The poor ye al- 
ways have with you." 

Thither, by night and by day, came the Sister of 
Mercy. The dying 

Looked up into her face, and thought, indeed, to be- 
hold there 

Gleams of celestial light encircle her forehead with 
splendor, 1315 

Such as the artist paints o'er the brows of saints and 
apostles. 

Or such as hangs by night o'er a city seen at a distance. 

Unto their eyes it seemed the lamps of the city celes- 
tial. 

Into whose shining gates erelong their spirits would 
enter. 

Thus, on a Sabbath morn, through the streets, de- 
serted and silent, 1320 

Wending her quiet way, she entered the door of the 
almshouse. 

Sweet on the summer air was the odor of flowers in 
the garden. 

And she paused on her way to gather the fairest 
among them. 

That the dying once more might rejoice in their fra- 
grance and beauty. 

Then, as she mounted the stairs to the corridors, 
cooled by the east-wind, 1325 

Distant and soft on her ear fell the chimes from the 
belfry of Christ Church, 



458 HENRY WADSWORTH LONGFELLOW, 

While, intermingled with these, across the meadows 

were wafted 
Sounds of psalms, that were sung by the Swedes in 

their church at Wicaco. 
Soft as descending wings fell the calm of the hour on 

her spirit ; 
Something within her said, " At length thy trials are 

ended ; " 1330 

And, with light in her looks, she entered the cham- 
bers of sickness. 
Noiselessly moved about the assiduous, careful attend- 
ants. 
Moistening the feverish lip, and the aching brow, and 

in silence 
Closing the sightless eyes of the dead, and concealing 

their faces, 
Where on their pallets they lay, like drifts of snow 

by the roadside. 1335 

Many a languid head, upraised as Evangeline entered, 
Turned on its pillow of pain to gaze while she passed, 

for her presence 
Fell on their hearts like a ray of the sun on the walls 

of a prison. 
And, as she looked around, she saw how Death, the 

consoler. 
Laying his hand upon many a heart, had healed it 

forever. 1340 

1328. The Swedes' church at Wicaco is still standing", the 
oldest in the city of Philadelphia, having been begun in 1698. 
Wicaco is within the city, on the banks of the Delaware River. 
An interesting account of the old church and its historic associa- 
tions will be found in Westcott's book just mentioned, pp. 56-67. 
Wilson the ornithologist lies buried in the churchyard adjoining 
the church. 



EVANGELINE. 459 

Many familiar forms had disappeared in the night 

time ; 
Vacant their places were, or filled already by strangers. 

Suddenly, as if arrested by fear or a feeling of 

wonder, 
Still she stood, with her colorless lips apart, while a 

shudder 
Ran through her frame, arfd, forgotten, the flowerets 

dropped from her fingers, 1345 

And from her eyes and cheeks the light and bloom of 

the morning. 
Then there escaped from her lips a cry of such terri- 
ble anguish, 
That the dying heard it, and started up from their 

pillows. 
On the pallet before her was stretched the form of an 

old man. 
Long, and thin, and gray were the locks that shaded 

his temples ; 1350 

But, as he lay in the morning light, his face for a 

moment 
Seemed to assume once more the forms of its earlier 

manhood ; 
So are wont to be changed the faces of those who are 

dying. 
Hot and red on his lips still burned the flush of the 

fever, 
As if life, like the Hebrew, with blood had besprinkled 

its portals, 1355 

That the Angel of Death might see the sign, and pass 

over. 
Motionless, senseless, dying, he lay, and his spirit 

exhausted 



460 HENRY WADSWORTH LONGFELLOW. 

Seemed to be sinking down through infinite depths in 

the darkness, 
Darkness of slumber and death, forever sinking and 

sinking. 
Then through those realms of shade, in multiplied 

reverberations, iseo 

Heard he that cry of pain, and through the hush that 

succeeded 
Whispered a gentle voice, in accents tender and saint- 
like, 
" Gabriel ! O my beloved ! " and died away into si- 
lence. 
Then he beheld, in a dream, once more the home of 

his childhood ; 
Green Acadian meadows, with sylvan rivers among 

them, 1365 

Village, and mountain, and woodlands ; and, walking 

under their shadow. 
As in the days of her youth, Evangeline rose in his 

vision. 
Tears came into his eyes ; and as slowly he lifted his 

eyelids. 
Vanished the vision away, but Evangeline knelt by his 

bedside. 
Vainly he strove to whisper her name, for the accents 

un uttered 1370 

Died on his lips, and their motion revealed what his 

tongue would have spoken. 
Vainly he strove to rise; and Evangeline, kneeling 

beside him, 
Kissed his dying lips, and laid his head on her bosom. 
Sweet was the light of his eyes ; but it suddenly sank 

into darkness. 
As when a lamp is blown out by a gust of wind at a 

casement. 1375 



EVANGELINE. 461 

All was ended now, the hope, and the fear, and the 

sorrow, 
All the aching of heart, the restless, unsatisfied 

longing. 
All the dull, deep pain, and constant anguish of 

patience ! 
And, as she pressed once more the lifeless head to her 

bosom. 
Meekly she bowed her own, and murmured, " Father, 

I thank thee ! " laso 



Still stands the forest primeval ; but far away from 
its shadow. 

Side by side, in their nameless graves, the lovers are 
sleeping. 

Under the humble walls of the little Catholic church- 
yard. 

In the heart of the city, they lie, unknown and un- 
noticed. 

Daily the tides of life go ebbing and flowing beside 
them, 1385 

Thousands of throbbing hearts, where theirs are at 
rest and forever. 

Thousands of aching brains, where theirs no longer 
are busy. 

Thousands of toiling hands, where theirs have ceased 
from their labors. 

Thousands of weary feet, where theirs have completed 
their journey ! 

Still stands the forest primeval; but under the 

shade of its branches 1390 

Dwells another race, with other customs and language. 



462 HENRY WADSWORTH LONGFELLOW. 

Only along the shore of the mournful and misty 

Atlantic 
Linger a few Acadian peasants, whose fathers from 

exile 
Wandered back to their native land to die in its 

bosom. 
In the fisherman's cot the wheel and the loom are still 

busy ; 1395 

Maidens still wear their Norman caps and their kirtles 

of homespun, 
And by the evening fire repeat Evangeline's story, 
While from its rocky caverns the deep-voiced, neigh- 
boring ocean 
Speaks, and in accents disconsolate answers the wail 

of the forest. 



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